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Publications  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 


PHILOSOPHICAL  SERIES. 

EDITED   BY 

GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON 
Professor  of  Philosophy 

AND 

JAMES  McKEEIS"  CATTELL 
Professor  of  Psychology. 


No.  1. 


April,  1890. 


ON   SAMENESS    AND    IDENTITY. 

A  PSYCHOLOGICAL^TUDY:  BEING  A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  FOUNDATIONS 
OF  A  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 


GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON. 


PHILADELPHIA 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA  PRESS 
PUBLISHERS 


PHILOSOPHICAL  SERIES. 


NUMBERS  IN  PREPARATION. 


No.  II.    STUDIES  FROM  THE  LABORATORY  OF   EXPERI- 
MENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Researches  are  in  progress  on :  Memory  and  the  Least 
Noticeable  Difference  in  Sensation  ;  Measurement  in  the 
Diagnosis- of  Diseases  of  the  Nervous  System;  The  Rate  at 
which  the  Nervous  Impulse  Travels ;  The  Personal  Difference 
in  the  Time  of  Mental  Processes;  The  Rate,  Extent,  and 
Force  of  Movement ;  Accuracy  of  Perception  as  a  Function  of 
the  Time  of  Stimulation ;  The  Correlation  of  Mental  Time, 
Intensity,  and  Extensity ;  The  Relative  Value  to  Science  of 
Experiment,  Observation,  and  Memory;  The  Building  of 
Complex  Perceptions ;  etc. 

No.  III.  DESCARTES'  "  MEDITATIONS,"  with  Latin  and 
English  Texts,  and  Philosophical  Analysis. 
By  George  Stuart  Fullerton  and  William 
Romaine  Newbold. 


Publications  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 


PHILOSOPHICAL  SERIES 

EDITED  BY 

GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON 
Professor  of  Philosophy 

AND 

JAMES  McKEEN  CATTELL 
Professor  of  Psychology. 


No.  1.  April,  1890. 

ON   SAMENESS    AND    IDENTITY 

A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  STUDY:  BEING  A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  FOUNDATIONS 
OF  A  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 


GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON. 
H 


PHILADELPHIA 

UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA  PRESS 
PUBLISHERS 


F8 


OF  THE 

[    UNIVERSITY  ) 

OF 


On  Sameness  and  Identity. 

PART  I. 

THE   KINDS   OF   SAMENESS. 

And  some  require  everything  accurately  stated ;  whereas,  this  accuracy  [annoys  others, 
either  because  of  their  inability  to  follow  a  train  of  reasoning  through,  or  because  of  its  hair- 
splitting character ;  for  accuracy  does  involve  some  hair-splitting. 

Aristotle,  Metaph.  Book  I,  The  Less,  c.  3. 

SECTION  i.  There  are  few  words  the  ambiguity  of  which|has 
led  to  more  confusion  and  profitless  dispute  than  that  of  the  word 
same.  Men  constantly  use  this  word  as  though  it  had  but  one 
meaning,  and  that  meaning  were  always  clear,  whereas  it  really 
gives  expression  to  a  number  of  widely  different  experiences, 
some  of  which  are  quite  difficult  of  analysis.  It  is  highly  desira- 
ble that  these  experiences  should  not  be  confounded  with  each 
other,  but  kept  clearly  separate,  as  the  consequences  of  such 
misconception  are  very  far-reaching.  How  far-reaching,  I  shall 
in  the  pages  to  follow  try  to  indicate. 

It  is  my  purpose  to  point  out  the  differences  in  connotation  of 
the  several  senses  of  this  highly  ambiguous  word,  to  show  the 
element  which  they  have  in  common,  and  to  trace  some  of  the 
difficulties  and  absurdities  which  have  sprung  from  using  the 
word  loosely  and  without  proper  discrimination.  I  shall  have  to 
plead  guilty  to  something  very  like  hair-splitting,  but  I  may  put 
forward  in  excuse  the  undeniable  fact  that  "accuracy  does 
involve  some  hair-splitting."  If  anyone  prefers  the  self-contra- 
dictions and  preposterous  conclusions  to  which  loose  and  unana- 
lytic  thought  has  so  often  led  the  unwary,  he  is  welcome  to  them. 
I  shall  hold  a  few  of  these  up  to  inspection  after  a  while.  For 
my  part,  I  prefer  a  little  quibbling  at  the  outset  of  a  discussion 


.    190521 


to  a  systematic  incoherence  all  through  it,  with  the  chances  of 
finding  myself  in  a  cul-de-sac  at  the  end.  Whether  I  am  success- 
ful in  dissipating  to  some  degree  the  fog  which  has  hung  about 
samenesses  and  obliterated  important  distinctions,  each  one  must 
judge  for  himself. 

The  kinds  of  sameness  I  find  to  be  as  follows  : 

SEC.  2.  I.  We  speak  of  any  sensation,  feeling,  or  idea,  or 
complex  of  sensations,  feelings,  or  ideas,  as  being  the  same  with 
itself  at  any  one  instant.  The  pain  in  my  finger  is  what  it  is  at 
this  moment.  The  finger  itself  (the  immediate  object  of  knowl- 
edge, a  complex  from  sense  and  imagination)  is,  at  each  moment, 
what  it  is.  It  is  to  this  sense  of  the  word  that  the  logical  laws 
of  Identity  and  Contradiction  have  ultimate  reference. 

SEC.  3.  II.  A  sensation,  feeling,  or  idea,  or  complex  of  sen- 
sations, feelings,  or  ideas,  considered  in  itself  and  without  refer- 
ence to  the  world  of  material  things,  is  called  the  same  with 
one  previously  existent  when  the  two  are  alike.  I  say,  for 
example,  that  I  feel  to-day  the  same  pain  I  felt  yesterday,  or 
that  I  have  dreamt  the  same  dream  three  times.  This  is  evi- 
dently not  sameness  of  the  kind  first  mentioned. 

SEC.  4.  III.  We  speak  of  seeing  the  same  material  thing  at  dif- 
ferent times.  Suppose  a  man  passing  along  a  country  road  to  look 
across  a  field  at  a  distant  tree.  What  he  actually  sees  is  a  small 
bluish  patch  of  color,  which,  interpreting  in  terms  furnished  by 
his  previous  experience,  he  supplements  with  material  drawn  from 
memory  and  imagination.  On  the  following  day  he  looks  at  the 
tree  again  from  a  nearer  point  and  sees  a  larger  green  patch  of 
color  with  distinct  differences  of  shading  and  with  a  clear  out- 
line. This  he  interprets  in  a  similar  manner. 

Now,  without  being  a  philosopher  at  all,  and  without  conscious 
reference  to  anything  beyond  what  he  has  experienced  or  can 
experience,  he  affirms  that  he  has  on  two  successive  days  seen 


the  same  tree.  I  ask,  just  what  is  the  significance  of  the  word 
same  as  used  in  this  connection  ?  What  peculiar  experience  has 
it  been  employed  to  mark  ?  What  is  perceived  on  the  one  occa 
sion  is  not  the  same  as  what  is  perceived  on  the  other  in  the 
sense  of  the  word  first  given  (by  "  perceived"  I  mean  existing  in 
consciousness  as  a  complex  of  mental  elements.  With  the  sup- 
posed external  correlates  of  our  percepts  I  am  not  now  con- 
cerned). And  it  is  equally  clear  that  two  such  percepts  need 
not  be  the  same  in  the  second  sense  of  the  word,  for  they  may  be 
quite  unlike.  In  this  case  they  are  unlike,  so  far  at  least  as  what 
is  actually  in  sensation  is  concerned. 

What  peculiar  experience  then  does  the  word  mark  when  the 
observer  declares  that  he  has  seen  the  same  tree  twice  ? 

We  are  now  in  the  sphere  of  material  objects  (/'.  e.y  as  experi- 
enced ;  I  refer  to  the  mental  content  and  nothing  more),  and  are 
not  concerned  with  our  experiences  as  isolated  elements,  but  as 
grouped  and  arranged  in  series.  Our  total  possible  experience 
of  any  one  object  is  a  collection  of  partly  simultaneous  and 
partly  successive  actual  and  possible  sensations  which  condi- 
tion each  other,  and  which  we  regard  as  a  unit.  The  Idealist 
believes  that  this  is  all  there  is  of  the  object,  and  all  we  mean 
when  we  commonly  employ  the  word.  The  Realist  assumes 
that  there  is  something  beyond  and  corresponding  to  this  expe- 
rience, and  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  real  thing.  He,  how- 
ever, must  admit  that  all  we  can  know  of  any  object,  in  what- 
ever sense  we  choose  to  employ  that  word,  all  our  evidence  for 
maintaining  its  existence  and  determining  its  qualities,  must  be 
drawn  from  this  group  of  sensations.  It  is  this  that  we  immedi- 
ately know,  and  anything  inferred  must  be  inferred  from  this. 

From  this  it  follows  that  when  any  one,  whether  Realist,  or 
Idealist,  or  unreflective  man,  feels  justified  in  asserting  that  what 
he  perceives  to-day  is  the  same  object  he  perceived  yesterday,  he 


8 

is  led  to  make  this  assertion  on  the  strength  of  some  distinction 
in  his  immediate  experience,  and  he  refers  only  secondarily,  if  at 
all,  to  anything  beyond  and  external  to  this.  The  distinction 
which  he  marks  by  the  word  is  this-:  He  has  reason  to  believe 
that  the  two  percepts  in  question  belong  to  the  one  series, — to  the 
one  life  history,  so  to  speak.  He  believes  that  had  he  cared  to 
do  so  he  could  have  filled  up  the  gap  between  them  by  a  contin- 
uous series  of  percepts,  each  conditioned  by  the  preceding,  and 
forming  the  one  chain.  Each  represents  to  him  the  one  object, 
in  that  each  stands  for  the  whole  series,  and  his  thought  is  much 
more  taken  up  with  the  series  as  a  whole  than  with  the  individ- 
uals composing  it.  He  knows  that  the  percepts  in  such  a  series 
can  only  be  successive,  never  simultaneous.  Had  he  reason  to 
suspect  that  the  two  percepts  we  are  discussing  belong  to  dif- 
ferent series  of  this  kind,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  to  prevent  their  being  simultaneous,  he  would  decide 
for  two  trees. 

But  each  percept  contains  more  than  one  mental  element,  and 
just  as  we  may  regard  each  percept  as  representing  the  whole 
series,  so  we  may  regard  each  element  as  representing  the  whole 
complex  which  may  be  experienced  at  one  time,  and  through  this 
the  whole  series  of  percepts.  I  say  that  the  orange  I  smell  is 
the  same  with  the  one  I  see;  that  I  can  reveal  by  striking  a 
light  the  chair  I  fell  over  in  the  dark  ;  that  I  hear  rattling  down 
the  street  the  coach  I  stepped  out  of  a  few  moments  ago.  It  is 
not  worth  while  to  distinguish  this  use  from  the  use  of  the  word 
same  just  mentioned,  for  they  agree  in  making  a  single  experi- 
ence stand  for  a  whole  group  or  series,  which  is  assumed  to  be 
at  least  potentially  present  with  each  one.  When  we  have  had 
two  experiences  thus  representing  the  one  group,  we  say  that  we 
have  in  two  ways,  or  on  two  occasions,  experienced  the  same 
object.  In  this  sense  has  the  man  in  our  illustration  seenyester- 


day  and  to-day  the  same  tree.  In  this  sense  could  he  at  the  one 
time  see  and  touch  the  same  tree. 

It  is  in  this  sense  also  that  we  use  the  word  when  we  say  that 
the  object  seen  with  the  naked  eye  and  the  object  seen  through 
a  telescope  or  under  a  microscope  are  the  same.  If  I  look  at  a 
distant  object  with  the  naked  eye  and  then  look  at  it  through  a 
telescope,  what  I  actually  see  (or  what  is  actually  in  the  sense) 
is  in  the  two  cases  very  different.  But  just  as  seeing  an  object 
from  a  distance  with  the  naked  eye,  I  may  walk  towards  it  and 
substitute  for  the  dim  and  vague  percept  which  I  first  had  a  series 
of  percepts  increasing  in  clearness  and  ending  in  one  which  I 
regard  as  altogether  satisfactory,  so  I  may  substitute  at  once  this 
clear  percept  for  the  dim  one,  by  the  use  of  the  telescope,  and 
may  know  that  it  properly  belongs  to  the  series  which,  taken  as 
a  whole,  constitutes  my  notion  of  the  object.  This  I  may  know 
from  the  relations  which  this  percept  bears  to  the  other  percepts 
of  the  series,  and  which  allow  me  to  pass  in  my  inferences  from 
it  to  them  as  I  can  from  any  one  of  them  to  another.  If,  seeing 
a  dim  object  upon  the  horizon,  I  raise  a  telescope  and  through  it 
perceive  the  figure  of  a  man,  I  know  that  I  could  have  had  a 
similar  percept  without  any  telescope  by  simply  approaching  the 
object.  Conversely,  on  perceiving  a  man  near  at  hand,  I  know  I 
could  have  a  similar  percept  from  a  distance  by  looking  through 
a  telescope.  I  call  the  man  seen  through  the  telescope  the  same 
as  the  man  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  for  the  same  reason  as  I  call 
the  man  seen  by  the  eye  at  a  distance  the  same  with  the  man 
seen  near  at  hand. 

And  the  apparently  non-extended  speck  which  I  see  with  the 
naked  eye  looks  very  different  from  the  curious  insect  I  see  when 
I  place  a  microscope  over  this  speck,  but  I  call  them  the  same 
for  the  reason  just  given.  If  the  insect  as  seen  under  the  glass 
be  divided,  so  is  the  speck  as  seen  by  the  eye ;  if  the  insect  is 


10 

taken  away,  the  speck  disappears  too.  The  series  of  percepts 
made  possible  through  the  microscope  may  be  regarded  as  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  series  which  arises  from  approaching  the  eye  to 
the  object.  Each  member  in  it  stands  in  a  relation  to  this  pri- 
mary series  similar  to  that  illustrated  above  in  the  case  of  the 
telescope,  and  similar  to  that  held  by  the  terms  of  the  primary 
series  to  each  other.  It  should  be  kept  clearly  in  mind  that  in 
all  these  cases  the  object  (immediately  perceived)  is  the  same 
only  in  the  sense  pointed  out,  i.  e.,  two  or  more  percepts,  which 
may,  in  themselves  considered,  be  quite  unlike  each  other,  are 
recognized  as  in  a  certain  relation  to  each  other,  as  each  repre- 
senting the  one  series  to  which  all  belong.  If  one  thinks  he  has 
reason  to  believe  each  percept  represents  not  merely  the  series 
of  percepts,  but  something  different,  which  he  infers  and  is 
pleased  to  call  the  "  real"  thing,  he  may  be  inclined  to  believe 
that  in  saying  he  sees  the  same  object  on  two  occasions  he  is 
referring  to  this  something.  It  must  be  clear  to  him,  however 
that  all  his  evidence  for  the  sameness  of  this  something  lies  in 
the  experience  I  have  described,  and  it  is  to  this  that  he  must 
point  in  proof  that  it  is  the  same.  The  percepts  themselves  are 
certainly  not  the  same  in  any  other  sense  than  the  one  given. 
They  are  not  identical,  and  they  need  not  be  alike.  They  merely 
stand  for  each  other.  Should  one  forget  this,  he  will  fall  into 
blunders  which  I  will  illustrate  at  length  when  I  speak  of  the 
common  opinion  on  the  subject  of  the  infinite  divisibility  of 
space. 

John  Locke,  in  his  famous  "Essay,"1  has  made  a  distinction 
between  the  sameness  of  masses  of  inorganic  matter  and  the 
sameness  of  organisms.  That  of  the  former,  he  says,  consists 
in  the  sameness  of  their  particles,  while  the  sameness  of  a  plant 
or  animal  does  not  consist  in  that  of  the  particles  which  com- 

1  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,  Bk.  2,  Chap.  27,  §  3. 


II 

pose  it  at  this  time  or  at  that,  for  they  are  in  continual  flux,  but 
in  the  participation  in  the  one  l£e  of  the  organism.  It  does  not, 
however,  appear  to  me  that  we  have  here  a  real  difference  in  the 
kind  of  experience  marked  by  the  word.  The  difference  is 
merely  that  in  the  one  case  we  connect  this  experience,  not 
with  the  object  as  a  whole,  but  with  the  separate  particles  which 
compose  it,  which  we  take  as  so  many  separate  objects  each 
having  a  sameness  of  the  kind  just  discussed,  while  in  the  other 
case  we  look  upon  the  object  as  a  whole,  as  a  unit,  and  disregard 
any  reference  to  its  component  parts.  But  whether  we  regard 
the  object  as  a  unit  or  take  each  of  its  ultimate  parts  as  separate 
objects,  we  are  thinking  of  the  one  kind  of  sameness.  We  are 
thinking  of  a  certain  life-history  in  which  any  one  link  may 
represent  the  whole,  and  any  two  links  may  be,  from  this  point 
of  view,  regarded  as  equivalent.  It  is  not  merely  with  reference 
to  plants  and  animals  that  we  speak  of  sameness  without  regard 
to  a  sameness  of  constituent  parts.  We  do  it  in  this  case 
simply  because  the  organism  furnishes  us  with  a  convenient 
unit,  and  one  much  more  important  as  a  unit  than  as  an  aggre- 
gate. We  can  make  similar  units  when  we  please,  and  consider 
their  sameness  without  thinking  of  their  parts.  We  speak  of 
the  same  nation  as  existing  through  many  generations,  and  of 
the  same  corporation  as  surviving  many  deaths.  Whether  the 
object  we  are  considering  be  naturally  indivisible,  or  composite 
and  assumed  a  unit  for  convenience,  when  we  speak  of  it  as  the 
same  at  two  different  times  we  are  referring  to  the  one  experi- 
ence. Locke  does  make  here  a  distinction  worth  noticing,  but 
it  does  not  mark  two  fundamentally  different  uses  of  the  word. 

SEC.  5.  IV.  Two  objects  are  called  the  same,  and  two  other 
mental  experiences  occurring  at  the  one  time  are  called  the 
same,  from  the  fact  that  they  are  recognized  as  alike.  The 
botanist,  finding  that  two  plants  belong  to  the  one  class  calls 


12 

them  the  same  without  any  intention  of  confounding  the  two- 
individuals.  Nor  does  one  who  places  his  two  hands  in  warm 
water  and  declares  that  he  has  the  same  feeling  in  both,  con- 
found the  two  streams  of  sensation.  The  fact  that  only  like- 
ness is  meant  is  here  clearly  recognized.  It  is  not,  I  think,  as 
clearly  recognized  when  similar  sensations  or  other  mental 
experiences  (considered  singly),  occurring  at  different  times,  are 
called  the  same.  In  that  case  they  are  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
if  they  were  material  objects  having  a  continuous  sameness  after 
the  fashion  explained  above. 

SEC.  6.  V.  The  word  same  is  used  to  signify  the  relation  be- 
tween any  mental  experience  and  that  which  is  regarded  as  its 
representative.  This  representative  may  or  may  not  resemble  it. 
We  speak,  for  example,  of  calling  up  in  memory  this  or  that 
object  seen  at  some  past  time.  The  memory-image  is  certainly 
not  the  same  with  the  original  percept  in  Sense  I.  When  we 
say  that  the  object  of  memory  is  the  past,  we  cannot  mean  this,, 
for  it  is  plainly  false.  Nor  is  it  thought  of  as  merely  like  it,  as 
in  Sense  II.  It  is  thought  of  as  a  something  which  represents 
it — stands  for  it  in  a  peculiar  way.  Just  what  this  implies  I 
will  not  here  attempt  to  discover.  It  is  enough  for  my  purpose 
to  point  out  that  when  we  say  a  man  remembers  an  object  we 
do  not  mean  merely  to  indicate  the  presence  in  his  imagination 
of  a  resembling  picture,  but  to  include  a  certain  relation  between 
this  picture  and  an  original  percept. 

It  is  not  easy  to  describe  what  is  present  in  an  act  of  memory. 
When  I  am  thinking  of  another  man  as  calling  to  mind  some- 
thing from  his  past  experience,  I  bring  before  my  own  mind  twa 
pictures,  one  representing  his  original  percept,  and  one  his 
present  memory-image.  Holding  these  before  me  together,  I 
recognize  them  as  related,  but  distinct.  I  use  the  word  same  to> 
denote  their  relation.  But  the  person  who  is  exercising  his 


13 

memory  does  not  have  before  his  mind  two  objects,  an  original 
and  a  copy,  with  an  observed  relation  between  them.  He  has 
not  the  original,  or  it  would  not  be  an  act  of  memory.  When, 
however,  he  reflects  upon  his  experience  as  I  have  done,  he  rep- 
resents it  to  himself  as  I  have  represented  it  to  myself.  He 
speaks  as  if,  in  the  act  of  remembering,  he  were  conscious  of 
two  objects  and  could  compare  them.  He  speaks  of  recognizing 
the  memory  picture  as  a  copy  and  representative  of  the  original 
percept.  Language,  as  commonly  used,  adapts  itself  to  this 
way  of  regarding  the  matter,  and  I  may  leave  a  further  analysis 
of  it  to  the  student  of  the  memory,  merely  pointing  out  that, 
whatever  is  implied  in  the  experience,  a  common  use  of  the  word 
same  is  to  denote  this  relation  between  any  mental  experience 
and  the  memory-image  which  represents  it. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  kind  of  sameness  may  be  presupposed 
in  affirming  sameness  in  other  senses  of  the  word.  When  I 
compare  a  present  sensation  with  one  felt  some  days  since,  and 
affirm  that  they  are  the  same,  the  latter  must  enter  into  the 
comparison  through  its  representative  in  memory.  It  is  not 
itself  present  at  the  time  of  the  comparison. 

And  when  I  say  that  I  have  seen  the  same  tree  yesterday  and 
to-day,  I  mean,  as  I  have  explained,  that  the  two  percepts  belong 
to  the  one  series ;  but  since  my  experience  of  yesterday  cannot 
be  itself  present  in  my  consciousness  to-day,  it  can  take  its 
place  in  the  series,  as  thought  to-day,  only  by  proxy.  When  I 
say  that  I  have  in  my  mind  the  same  series  on  two  successive 
days,  I  evidently  mean  that  it  is  the  same  series  in  the  sense  in 
which  any  experience  and  its  representative  in  memory  are  the 
same. 

Other  less  important  instances  might  be  given  of  this  use  of 
the  word  same  to  express  the  relation  between  any  experience 
and  its  representative.  We  say  that  we  see  an  object  in  a 


14 

mirror,  when  we  mean  that  we  see  its  reflected  image.  We 
speak  of  seeing  in  a  picture  this  man  or  that.  When  we  have 
found  for  anything  a  satisfactory  substitute  we  say  it  is  the  same 
thing.  Such  use,s  of  the  word  are  not  likely  to  deceive  anyone, 
and  I  will  not  dwell  upon  them.  Their  meaning  is  too  plain  to 
be  mistaken. 

SEC.  7.  VI.  We  constantly  speak  of  two  men  as  seeing  the 
same  thing.  In  this  we  have  a  sense  of  the  word  which  demands 
careful  analysis.  For  the  sake  of  clearness,  and  to  avoid 
ambiguity,  I  will  confine  myself  here,  as  I  have  done  in  the  fore- 
going sections,  to  an  examination  of  what  is  actually  experienced 
by  the  men,  and  will  defer  all  consideration  of  existences 
assumed  as  lying  beyond  a  possible  experience  in  an  extra- 
mental  world,  for  discussion  in  sections  to  follow. 

The  question  which  interests  me  at  present  is  simply  this : 
What  experience  is  it  that  leads  a  man  to  affirm  that  he  and 
someone  else  are  perceiving  the  same  object?  The  Realist  (in 
the  modern  sense)  would  say  that  this  experience  is  only  his 
evidence  that  he  and  another  are  perceiving  the  same  object, 
meaning  by  object  what  I  have  referred  to  as  believed  to  lie 
beyond  his  experience ;  while  the  Idealist  would  say  that  this 
experience  exhausts  the  whole  matter.  The  Realist  must,  how- 
ever, admit,  as  I  have  brought  out  in  a  different  connection,  that 
all  his  evidence  for  the  existence  of  the  object  (in  his  sense), 
and  for  any  affirmations  whatever  regarding  it,  lying  within  the 
field  of  the  immediately  known,  any  words,  which  have  been 
coined  to  express  qualities  of,  or  distinctions  concerning,  this 
object,  would  retain  a  use  and  significance  as  marking  distinc- 
tions within  this  field  even  if  the  object  were  supposed  non- 
existent. Whether  any  such  duplicate  of  what  is  immediately 
perceived  exists  or  not  is  a  question  apart.  Since  we  admittedly 
draw  all  our  distinctions  from  the  field  of  the  immediately 


15 

known  and  then  carry  them  over  to  such  objects,  and  not  vice 
versa,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  would  go  on  saying  that  two  men 
see  the  same  object  in  any  case.  I  myself  give  the  preference 
to  that  the  existence  of  which  is  an  indubitable  fact,  and  prefer 
using  the  word  object  to  indicate  the  complex  in  consciousness. 
I  have,  however,  no  desire  to  assume  any  point  in  dispute  by  jug- 
gling with  a  word,  and  will  try  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  thus  assumed  whenever  I  use  it. 

Now,  the  experience  which  leads  me  to  say  that  I  and  another 
man  see' the  same  object  is  just  this :  I  perceive  a  particular 
object,  and  in  a  certain  relation  to  it  I  perceive  the  body  of 
another  man.  From  a  past  experience  of  my  own  body  in  rela- 
tion to  objects  and  from  reasoning  by  analogy,  I  have  come  to 
connect  such  a  relation  of  another  body  to  the  object  with  the 
thought  of  another  consciousness  of  the  object  as  connected 
with  that  body.  Just  as  I  perceive  my  own  body  to  perform  cer- 
tain actions  when  I  am  conscious  of  perceiving  the  object,  so  I 
perceive  this  other  body  with  which  I  have  connected  in  thought 
a  consciousness  of  the  object  to  perform  similar  acts  in  response 
to  similar  relations  towards  the  object.  It  is  wholly  a  matter  of 
observation  in  my  own  case  that  the  perception  of  my  own  body 
in  this  or  that  relation  to  an  object  is  a  sine  qua  non  to  the  per- 
ception of  the  object.  And  it  is  wholly  a  matter  of  reasoning 
from  like  to  like  that  leads  me  to  connect  in  thought  sensations 
or  percepts  with  any  other  animal  body  whatever.  When  I  say, 
therefore,  that  I  and  another  man  are  perceiving  the  same  thing, 
there  is  in  my  mind  a  complex  consisting  of  a  percept  or  idea  of 
the  thing,  a  percept  or  idea  of  the  man's  body,  and  the 
thought  of  a  percept  connected  with  this  body.  When  I  say 
that  he  is  thinking  of  us  both  as  seeing  the  same  thing,  I  call 
up  in  mind  a  similar  complex  and  connect  it  in  thought  with  his 
body.  Whatever  I  may  believe  as  to  the  existence  or  non-exist- 


i6 

ence  of  things  lying  beyond  this  sphere,  and  supposed  to  cause 
these  experiences,  these  are  the  experiences  to  which  I  ulti- 
mately refer  when  I  speak  of  two  men  as  seeing  the  same  object, 
and  these  furnish  the  whole  ground  for  the  existence  of  the 
phrase. 

The  percept  of  the  object  which  I  connect  in  thought  with 
the  other  man's  body  need  not  be  wholly  similar  to  my  percept 
of  the  object.  The  man  who  has  discovered  that  he  is 
color-blind,  does  not  suppose  that  men  not  similarly  afflicted 
see  just  what  he  does  in  looking  at  a  cherry  tree  full  of  ripe  fruit. 
Nevertheless,  he  still  speaks  of  himself  and  others  as  seeing  the 
same  objects.  If  another  man's  body  is  not  exactly  like  mine, 
I  am  not  justified  by  argument  from  similarity  in  reading  into  it 
an  exactly  similar  experience.  It  is  not  the  similarity  of  the 
two  percepts  that  I  am  thinking  of  chiefly  when  I  speak  of  them 
as  percepts  of  the  same  object.  I  am  thinking  of  the  relation 
in  which  I  suppose  them  to  stand  to  each  other.  I  think  of  the 
possible  existence  of  the  one  under  given  circumstances  as  con- 
ditioning the  possible  existence  of  the  other. 

SEC.  8.  VII.  When  a  man  in  an  early  stage  of  reflection  upon 
his  experience  has  decided  that  objects  immediately  perceived  are 
not  the  real  things  but  merely  their  mental  copies  or  representa- 
tives, he  may  think  of  these  "real"  things  in  several  ways.  He 
may  believe  in  a  world  of  "real"  things,  consisting  of  groups  of 
"real"  qualities,  external  to  consciousness;  he  may  accept  such 
"real"  things,  but  add  to  them  a  substratum  or  substance,  dis- 
tinct from  the  qualities;  or  he  may  believe  that  the  "real" 
exists  as  mere  substratum,  substance,  or  noumenon,  and  that  all 
qualities,  being  merely  its  revelation  to  mind,  exist  within  the 
circle  of  consciousness  alone.  The  first  position  is  one  not 
often  taken.  The  second  is  that  held  by  Locke,1  who  believed 

1  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding.    Bk.  2,  Chap.  2,  §  i,  and  Bk.  2,  Chap.  23, 
§  i.  et  seq. 


that,  corresponding  to  our  ideas  of  objects,  there  exist  substances 
possessed  of  certain  primary  qualities,  and  having  an  under- 
lying substance  or  substratum.  The  third  represents  the  view  of 
the  Kantian,1  who,  to  be  consistent,  must  deny  to  his  noumenon 
any  qualities  whatever.  How  he  is  to  do  this  without  having  it 
lapse  into  utter  nothingness  is  a  problem  for  him  to  solve. 

The  disciple  of  Locke  has,  therefore,  in  discussing  all  the  uses 
of  the  word  same,  to  consider  the  sameness  of : 

1.  Things  immediately  known. 

2.  Groups  of  "real"  qualities  in  an  extra-mental  world,  more 
or  less  like  what  is  immediately  known. 

3.  Substance ;  the  "  I  know  not  what"  to  which  Locke  clung 
through  all  difficulties. 

The  man  who  holds  the  first  of  the  three  views  above  men- 
tioned need  only  consider  the  first  and  the  second  of  these ;  and 
the  Kantian  need  only  consider  the  first  and  the  third,  rebaptiz- 
ing  the  latter  "noumenon"  or  "thing-in-itself." 

Omitting  for  later  consideration  the  sameness  of  the  self  or 
ego,  I  have  already  discussed  the  uses  of  the  word  same  within 
the  field  of  the  immediately  known.  It  remains  to  consider  the 
sameness  of  what  is  believed  to  lie  beyond  this,  and  to  belong  to 
a  different  kind  of  a  world. 

When  men  discuss  these  supposed  realities,  in  what  senses  of 
the  word  same  may  they  reasonably  think  of  them  as  the  same  ? 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft.— "  Von  dem  Grunde  der  Unterscheidung  aller  Gergen- 
stiinde  iiberhaupt  in  Phenomena  und  Noumena."  Kant's  Sammtliche  Werke,  heraus- 
gegeben  von  Hartenstein.  Leipzig,  1867,  3er  Band,  s.  209,  et  seq.  See  also,  Kritik  der 
Praktischen  Vernunft ;  Vorrede ;  and  the  discussion  :  "  Wie  eine  Erweiterung  der  reinea 
Vernunft  in  praktischer  Absicht,  ohne  damit  ihr  Erkenntniss  als  speculativ,  zugleich  zu 
erweitern,  zu  denken  moglich  sei  ?"  I  Th.  II  B.  II  Hptst. ;  same  edition,  $er  Bd.,  s.  5,  140.  I 
am  not  concerned  here  with  the  inner  contradiction  of  the  Kantian  system.  The  notion 
of  noumena  predominantly  in  Kant's  mind,  was,  I  think,  about  as  I  have  stated.  He 
would  not,  of  course,  have  denied  "reality"  to  phenomena,  but  his  misconception  of 
Berkeley,  and  the  satisfaction  with  which  he  settles  down  to  the  noumenal  in  the  Critique  of 
the  Practical  Reason,  show  that  he  felt  toward  the  "  bios  Erscheinung"  very  much  as 
Locke  felt  toward  mere  ideas.  Cf.  "  Essay,"  Bk.  4,  Chap,  n,  §  7. 


i8 

When  a  common,  unreflective  man,  whose  mind  has  not  been, 
in  the  words  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  "debauched  by  learning," 
looks  at  a  tree  and  thinks  about  it,  he  believes  he  sees  a  real 
tree,  at  a  certain  real  distance  from  his  body,  and  of  a  given  real 
height  and  figure.  It  does  not  occur  to  him  to  make  any  distinc- 
tion between  the  tree  immediately  perceiyed,  and  an  inferred 
second  tree,  not  immediately  perceived,  but  represented  by  the 
former.  There  is  the  tree ;  he  sees  it ;  he  can  touch  it ;  it  seems 
to  him  but  one :  and  he  always  talks  as  if  there  were  but  one 
tree  to  be  discussed  in  the  premises.  That  one  tree,  he  thinks, 
is  really  extended ;  is  really  out  in  space  beyond  his  body ;  is,  in 
short,  what  it  appears  to  be.  To  his  unreflective  mind  this  tree 
does  not  seem  to  be  a  representative  or  to  be  seen  through  a 
representative,  but  to  be  seen  immediately  and  just  where  it 
really  is. 

But  when  a  man  has  begun  to  battle  with  the  difficulties  of 
reflection,  and  has  learned  to  make  a  distinction  between  things 
and  his  ideas  of  the  things,  he  will  probably  fall  into  unforeseen 
perplexities  about  this  tree.  He  reflects  that,  when  he  closes 
his  eyes,  the  tree  disappears ;  that  when  he  approaches  it  it  looks 
green,  and  when  he  recedes  from  it  it  grows  blue ;  that  a  man 
with  a  peculiar  defect  in  his  vision  does  not  see  it  colored  as  he 
does ;  that  when  he  makes  a  pressure  on  the  side  of  one  eye- 
ball he  sees  two  trees  where  before  he  saw  only  one ;  that  when 
he  makes  such  a  pressure  upon  both  eyeballs  and  moves  them 
about  a  little  he  sees  two  trees  moving  about,  although  he  knows 
real  trees  can  not  ordinarily  be  made  to  move  about  so  easily. 
Such  reflections  lead  him  to  distinguish  between  the  tree  as  he 
sees  it,  and  the  tree  as  it  really  is,  and  he  defines  the  tree  as  he  sees 
it  as  the  tree  immediately  known,  and  the  real  tree  as  the  tree 
mediately  known,  a  cause  of  the  existence  of  the  former.  He 
now  thinks  that  he  sees  directly  only  copies  or  representatives 


19 

of  real  things,  and  as  he  believes  these  copies  or  representatives 
to  be  in  his  mind,  and  usually  talks  as  if  his  mind  were  in  his 
head,  or  at  least  in  his  body,  he  concludes  that  things  immedi- 
ately known  must  in  many  instances  be  much  smaller  than  they 
seem,  or  perhaps  lack  extension  altogether.  How  can  a  tree 
thirty  feet  high  be  in  a  man's  mind  ?  It  is  true,  that,  when  I 
press  upon  my  eyeballs  in  the  manner  described,  I  seem  to  see 
two  trees  of  that  size  moving ;  but  must  it  not  be  a  mistake  ? 
Must  we  not  assume  that  what  is  immediately  seen  only  seems 
extended,  and  stands  for  an  extended  thing  which  is  grasped 
through  it  ?  So  our  philosopher  learns  to  distrust  the  immediate 
object  of  knowledge;  to  regard  it  as  in  some  sense  unreal  as 
compared  with  what  it  represents ;  and  to  deny  to  it  those  pro- 
perties which  it  apparently  possesses.  It  is  not  extended,  but 
it  stands  for  extension ;  it  is  not  colored,  but  it  stands  for  color ; 
it  is  not  real,  but  it  stands  for  reality. 

It  is  natural,  however,  for  one  who  has  gone  thus  far  to  go 
farther.  When  he  reflects  again  upon  the  fact  that  he  sees  the 
tree  of  a  different  color  at  different  distances ;  when  he  remem- 
bers that  colors  vary  with  the  quality  of  the  light  by  which  they 
are  seen ;  when  he  and  his  neighbor  dispute  concerning  the  true 
color  of  the  one  tree  which  he  sees  dotted  with  red  leaves,  and 
which  his  opponent  claims  to  see  of  a  uniform  color;  then  he 
may  well  begin  to  ask  himself  what  is  the  true  color  of  the  "real " 
tree,  or  whether  it  is  certain  that  it  has  any  color  at  all  ?  May 
not,  then,  the  "real"  tree  have  only  some  of  the  qualities  that 
we  ordinarily  attribute  to  trees  ?  Perhaps,  the  space  qualities  ? 

Or,  worse  yet,  since  some  of  the  qualities  that  the  ordinary 
man  attributes  to  trees  may  be  regarded  as  existing  only  in  a 
shadowy  way  in  our  ideas,  why  may  not  the  same  be  true  of  all 
the  other  qualities?  How  do  we  know  that  "real"  trees  are 
extended?  How  do  we  know  that  "real"  extension  must  be 


2O 

assumed  as  the  cause  of  the  delusive  apparent  extension  of  our 
ideas,  if  it  is  true  that  "real"  color  need  not  thus  be  assumed  as  a 
cause  of  our  sensations  of  color  ?  What  if  the  "  real "  thing  exists 
only  as  an  indescribable  and  incomprehensible  somewhat,  which 
we  must  assume  as  a  cause  of  the  immediately  known,  but  of 
which  we  can  know  nothing  more  ?  When  one  has  once  begun 
this  slippery  descent,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  where  he  may  find  a 
peg  to  stay  him  in  his  course. 

Suppose,  however,  he  is  content  to  strip  the  "real"  thing  of 
what  are  commonly  called  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter,  and 
to  leave  to  it  what  are  known  as  the  primary.  He  will  follow 
the  example  of  the  wholly  unreflective  man  and  speak  of  it  in 
such  a  way  as  to  suggest  that  the  thing  itself  is  something  apart 
from  its  "real"  qualities.  A  tree,  he  will  say,  has  qualities.  It 
would  certainly  sound  odd  to  hear  him  say  it  is  qualities.  And 
he  will  very  possibly  go  on  to  justify  the  use  of  the  language  he 
employs  by  distinguishing  between  the  "real"  qualities  repre- 
sented by  his  mental  picture  of  the  tree  and  an  obscure  some- 
thing which  he  assumes  as  underlying  them ;  thus  embracing 
the  Lockian  distinction  of  ideas,  "real"  qualities,  and  substance. 
He  may  conclude,  it  is  true,  that  substance  in  this  sense  of  the 
word  is  chimerical,  and  that  the  belief  in  it  arises  out  of  a  misun- 
derstanding of  the  significance  of  language ;  but  if  he  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  assume  duplicates  of  things  immediately  known,  in 
the  form  of  "real"  qualities,  it  is  more  probable  that  he  will  be 
inclined  to  complete  his  classes  of  beings  by  adding  the  third.1 

Now,  it  does  not  concern  me  to  consider  whether  this  change 
of  view  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  real  progress  in  reflective  knowl- 
edge or  as  a  progressive  decline  and  fall  of  the  unreflective  man. 

1  There  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  he  may  not  add  as  many  more  classes  as  he  pleases, 
and  justify  the  additions  as  he  justifies  this.  Men  do  not  do  this,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but 
that  is  no  reason. 


21 

The  point  which  concerns  me  is  this  :  The  unreflective  man 
talks  as  if  but  one  tree  were  under  discussion.  The  man  who 
reflects  uses  the  same  forms  of  speech:  and  even  when  he 
believes  that  he  must  distinguish  between  the  tree  immediately 
known  and  the  obscure  something  which  he  has  come  to  look 
upon  as  its  cause,  or  between  the  tree  immediately  known,  the 
bundle  of  "real"  qualities  inferred,  and  the  obscure  something 
that  he  connects  with  these,  he  still  goes  on  talking  as  if  he  had 
only  one  thing  to  talk  about.  The  danger  of  such  a  proceeding 
is  obvious.  If  I  talk  about  two  or  three  things  as  though  they 
were  one,  it  is  but  natural  that  I  should  sometimes  confuse  them 
with  each  other.  Should  proof  be  forthcoming  for  one  of  these, 
it  would  be  but  natural  for  me  to  fall  occasionally  into  the  error 
of  supposing  that  it  somehow  applies  to  the  others.  If  I  go  on 
saying  "the  tree"  when  I  mean  one  tree  and  something  else, 
two  trees,  or  two  trees  and  something  else,  it  is  only  to  be 
expected  that  I  sooner  or  later  come  to  grief  in  my  reasonings. 
And  it  should  be  noted  that  this  peculiar  ambiguity  in  the 
names  of  things  entails  a  parallel  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the 
words  by  which  we  indicate  the  mind's  recognition  of  the 
presence  of  things.  We  commonly  speak  of  a  drunken  man's 
seeing  two  trees,  where  a  sober  man  sees  one.  We  speak  of  an 
insane  man  as  hearing  voices,  when  no  one  has  spoken.  We  say 
that  we  see  the  maples  are  turning  red,  even  when  we  believe 
that  color  may  not  properly  be  attributed  to  the  mediate  object 
of  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  hold  to  the  exist- 
ence of  "real"  objects  of  the  kind  before  mentioned,  generally 
maintain  that  in  referring  to  things  in  space,  their  positions  and 
mutual  relations,  we  are  giving  attention,  not  to  the  immedi- 
ately known,  but  to  its  "external"  double.  "I  see,  feel,  per- 
ceive," it  is  "said,  not  the  image,  and  not  the  constituents  of  the 
image  (the  ideas),  but  the  external  object  by  means  of  the  image."1 

1Ueberweg.   See  Krauth's  Ed.  of  Berkeley's  "Principles,"  Phila.,  1874,  P-  343- 


22 

If  one  holds  that  this  "external"  object  presupposes  a  substance, 
a  something  distinct  from  a  group  of  qualities,  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  his  maintaining,  should  he  wish  to  do  so,  that  in 
saying  "I  see  a  tree,"  primary  reference  is  had  to  this  substance 
or  "reality."  Of  course,  if,  in  the  sentence  "I  see  a  tree,"  the 
word  "tree"  can  have  three  meanings,  it  follows  that  there  is 
also  a  possibility  of  taking  in  three  senses  the  word  "see."  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that,  unless  one  is  very  careful, 
"  seeing"  in  one  sense  may  result  in  "believing"  in  another,  as 
"kicking"  did  in  the  famous  case  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  the  stone. 
The  caution  is  pertinent  with  respect  to  any  other  word  used  in 
the  same  general  way  as  we  use  the  word  "see." 

I  have  said  that  when  a  man  abandons  his  original  unreflec- 
tive  position  and  learns  to  distinguish  between  things  immedi- 
ately known  and  other  things  they  are  supposed  to  represent, 
he  goes  on  using  the  common  language,  and  talking  as  though 
there  were  but  one  thing  under  consideration.  Now,  men  do 
not  do  this  merely  in  common  conversation  and  in  writing  about 
matters  of  everyday  life,  but  they  do  it  in  the  very  books  that 
have  been  written  to  prove  that  each  thing  is  thus  double  or 
triple.  John  Locke,  for  example,  begins  the  very  chapter  in 
which  he  is  about  to  draw  the  distinction  between  the  secondary 
and  primary  qualities  of  bodies  (i.  e.,  between  the  constituents 
of  things  immediately  known  and  the  constituents  of  their 
"  external"  correlates),  as  well  as  to  enlighten  us  on  our  ideas  of 
substances,  with  the  following  words  :l 

"The  mind  being,  as  I  have  declared,  furnished  with  a  great 
number  of  the  simple  ideas,  conveyed  in  by  the  senses,  as  they 
are  found  in  exterior  things,  or  by  reflexion  on  its  own  opera- 
tions, takes  notice  also,  that  a  certain  number  of  these  simple 
ideas  go  constantly  together ;  which,  being  presumed  to  belong 

"  Essay"  Bk.  2,  Chap.  23,  §  i. 


23 

to  one  thing,  and  words  being  suited  to  common  apprehensions, 
and  made  use  of  for  quick  despatch,  are  called,  so  united  in  one 
subject,  by  one  name  ;  which,  by  inadvertency,  we  are  apt 
afterward  to  talk  of,  and  consider  as  one  simple  idea,  which 
indeed  is  a  complication  of  many  ideas  together  :  because,  as  I 
have  said,  not  imagining  how  these  simple  ideas  can  subsist  by 
themselves,  we  accustom  ourselves  to  suppose  some  substratum 
wherein  they  do  subsist,  and  from  which  they  do  result,  and 
which  therefore  we  call  substance'' 

It  is  clear  enough  from  this,  as  it  is  clear  enough  from  other 
passages  in  the  same  book,  that  Locke  talked  as  though  the  com- 
plex of  simple  ideas  in  consciousness  were  the  very  same  thing 
(in  Sense  I)  as  the  group  of  "real"  qualities  outside  of  con- 
sciousness. And  no  careful  reader  of  his  book  can  avoid  seeing 
that  the  confusion  of  his  language  is  a  fair  index  to  the  confu- 
sion of  his  thoughts  with  regard  to  the  two.1  It  is  little  better 
in  the  case  of  "  bodies  "  and  substance.  In  the  passage  just  given, 
he  would  seem  to  make  substance  an  obscure  something  under- 
lying groups  of  ideas,  and  not  groups  of  real  qualities,  but  in  the 
next  sentence  he  makes  it  a  substratum  of  the  qualities  which 
produce  in  us  ideas.  In  many  passages2  he  distinguishes  between 
substance  and  substances,  by  which  latter  he  means  groups  of 
"real"  qualities  with  the  added  substratum  or  substance;  as  such 
substances  he  instances  oak,  elephant,  iron.  He  emphasizes  the 
fact  that  substance  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  substances, 
which  are  things  of  different  sorts.3  In  so  far  as  the  substances 
are  bundles  of  qualities,  they  are  known  to  us  through  sensation.4 
In  so  far  as  they  are  also  substance,  they  cannot  be  known  to  us 
through  sensation,  for  the  idea  of  substance  is  not  known 

1 "  Essay,"  Bk.  4,  Chap.  2,  §  14 ;  Bk.  4,  Chap.  4  and  Chap.  u. 

2 Ibid.,  Bk.  2,  Chap.  12,  §  6;  Bk.  2,  Chap.  23,  §  i,  with  note  (Phila.,  1846,  p.  183,  et  seq.). 

3  See  note  to  §  i,  Chap.  23,  Bk.  2.  4  Bk.  4,  Chap,  u,  et  passim. 


24 

through  sensation.1  We  are  not  then  to  look  upon  substance  as 
such  a  constituent  part  of  "a  substance"  as  a  quality  is.  The 
two  belong  to  different  classes.  And  if  we  offer  proof  for  the 
existence  of  "real"  substances, which  is  evidently  applicable  to 
them  only  as  bundles  of  qualities — proof  from  sensation — then 
substance  is  overlooked  altogether.  It  is  significant  that  Locke, 
having  thus  put  together  under  one  head  as  "a  substance"  an 
oak  viewed  as  a  bundle  of  "real"  qualities  and  an  oak  viewed  as 
substratum,  proceeded  to  argue  as  if  he  had  but  one  thing  to 
prove  when  he  felt  called  upon  to  defend  the  real  existence  of 
substances.  In  his  chapters  on  "The  Extent  of  Human  Knowl- 
edge," the  "Reality  of  Knowledge,"  and  "Our  Knowledge  of 
the  Existence  of  Other  Things," 2  he  devotes  himself  wholly  to 
proving  things  as  bundles  of  qualities,  and  pays  no  more  atten- 
tion to  substance  than  if  it  had  never  entered  his  thought.  If  we 
take  these  chapters  as  authoritative,  we  must  banish  substance 
from  the  sphere  of  knowledge  altogether. 

As  another  instance  of  a  use  of  language  calculated  to  produce 
confusion,  I  may  offer  the  following  from  Sir  William  Hamilton : 
"Whatever  we  know  is  not  known  as  it  is,  but  only  as  it  seems 
to  us  to  be,"8 — a  use  of  words  which  would  certainly  indicate 
that  the  immediate  and  mediate  objects  of  knowledge  are  one. 
And  what  would  we  infer  from  such  a  sentence  as  this :  "  Thus 
the  consciousness  of  an  Inscrutable  Power  manifested  to  us 
through  all  phenomena,  has  been  growing  ever  clearer ;  and  must 
eventually  be  freed  from  its  imperfections.  The  certainty  that 
on  the  one  hand  such  a  Power  exists,  while  on  the  other  hand  its 
nature  transcends  intuition  and  is  beyond  imagination,  is  the  cer- 
tainty towards  which  intelligence  has  from  the  first  been  progress- 

1 "  I  confess  there  is  another  idea,  which  would  be  of  general  use  for  mankind  to  have,  as 
it  is  of  general  talk,  as  if  they  had  it ;  and  that  is  the  idea  of  substance,  which  we  neither  have, 
nor  can  have,  by  sensation  or  reflection."  Bk.  i,  Chap.  4,  §  18  of  the  "  Essay." 

*  "  Essay,"  Bk.  4,  Chaps.  3,  4  and  xi. 

3  Lectures  on  Metaph.,  VIII,  N.  Y.,  1880,  p.  102. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


ing."1  Or  this:  "We  are  obliged  to  regard  every  phenomenon 
as  a  manifestation  of  some  Power  by  which  we  are  acted  upon  ; 
though  Omnipresence  is  unthinkable,  yet,  as  experience  dis- 
closes no  bounds  to  the  diffusion  of  phenomena,  we  are  unable 
to  think  of  limits  to  the  presence  of  this  Power  ;  while  the  criti- 
cisms of  Science  teach  us  that  this  Power  is  Incomprehensible. 
And  this  consciousness  of  an  Incomprehensible  Power,  called  Om- 
nipresent from  inability  to  assign  its  limits,  is  just  that  conscious- 
ness on  which  Religion  dwells."  2 

"After  concluding  that  we  cannot  know  the  ultimate  nature 
of  that  which  is  manifested  to  us,  there  arise  the  questions  — 
What  is  it  that  we  know?  In  what  sense  do  we  know  it?"8  Or 
what  shall  one  say  to  this  :  "  Our  consciousness  of  the  uncondi- 
tioned being  literally  the  unconditioned  consciousness,  or  raw 
material  of  thought,  to  which  in  thinking  we  give  definite  forms, 
it  follows  that  an  ever-present  sense  of  real  existence  is  the  very 
basis  of  our  intelligence."  4 

Now,  if  the  consciousness  of  an  "inscrutable  power"  is  not  the 
"inscrutable  power"  itself;  if  the  existence  of  such  a  "power" 
does  not  mean  simply  its  existence  in  consciousness  ;  if  the 
phenomena  in  which,  it  is  assumed,  a  "power"  is  manifested, 
are  to  be  kept  separate  in  thought  from  the  "power,"  so  that  we 
shall  be  in  no  danger  of  confounding  a  consciousness  of  certain 
phenomena  with  consciousness  of  an  "incomprehensible  power;" 
if  our  "consciousness  of  the  unconditioned"  is  to  be  kept  in  mind 
as  signifying  merely  our  "unconditioned  consciousness,"  and  an 
"ever-present  sense  of  real  existence"  as  signifying  only  an 
ever-present  sense  of  "raw  material"  in  consciousness  ;  then  it  is 
high  time  that  these  sentences  and  all  such  as  these  be  re-written 

1  Herbert  Spencer,  "  First  Principles."    Part  I,  Chap.  V,  §  31,  N.  Y.,  1888,  p.  108. 

2  "  First  Principles."    Part  I,  Chap.  V,  §  27. 

3  Part  II,  Chap.  I,  §  35.  *  Part  I,  Chap.  IV,  §  26. 


26 

with  some  regard  for  lucidity,  accuracy  and  consistency.  How 
can  a  reader  help  confounding  things  when  he  is  thus  taught  by 
the  very  man  whose  business  it  is  to  distinguish  between  them  ? 
The  blind  led  by  the  blind  is  a  cheerful  spectacle  compared 
with  this. 

Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  that  the  man  who  has  aban- 
doned his  original  unreflective  belief  in  the  singleness  of  the 
perceived  object,  and  has  come  to  believe  in  it  as  having  one  or 
more  "external"  correlates,  should  keep  distinctly  in  mind  that 
an  immediate  and  a  mediate  object  are,  by  hypothesis,  two  distinct 
things :  that  he  has  never  had  any  direct  experience  whatever 
save  of  the  one ;  and  that  all  distinctions  that  he  makes  with 
regard  to  the  other,  the  very  notions  of  its  existence,  reality,  and 
externality,  have  been  drawn  from  the  sphere  of  the  immediate 
and  carried  over  to  it  in  thought.  And  he  should  never  allow 
himself  to  forget,  that,  when  he  says  he  has  passed  in  thought 
from  the  immediate  to  the  mediate  object,  he  cannot  mean  liter- 
erally  that  his  thought  is  now  occupied  directly  upon  this  "ex- 
ternal" thing — that  it  is  itself  present  to  mind.  He  should 
remember  that  he  can  only  mean  that  he  has  such  an  experience 
as  the  following : 

He  has  in  mind  the  immediate  object,  and  a  mental  picture  of 
a  duplicate  of  this  standing  in  a  causal  relation  to  it  and  repre- 
sented by  it ;  or,  he  has  (if  a  Lockian),  in  addition  to  these  two, 
a  third  highly  vague  and  indefinite  mental  image  (the  idea  of  "sub- 
stance"), which  he  connects  with  the  image  just  described,  as  he 
has  connected  that  with  the  immediate  object;  or  (if  a  Kantian), 
he  has  in  mind  the  immediate  object,  and,  connected  directly 
with  that,  such  a  vague  image  as  has  just  been  described.  This 
is  what  he  actually  has  in  mind  so  far  as  objects  are  concerned. 
He  does  not,  however,  merely  recognize  the  existence  in  his  mind 
of  these  different  images  in  their  relations  to  each  other,  but 


27 

he  looks  upon  this  mental  arrangement  as  somehow  justified  by 
experience  and  embodying  truth. 

When  we  ask  what  the  word  "justified"  can  mean  in  this  con- 
nection, it  is  not  easy  to  find  an  answer.  Within  the  sphere  of 
the  immediately  known  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  plain  enough. 
When  I  have  constructed  in  my  imagination  a  certain  image  or 
complex  of  images  embodying  a  belief  as  to  matter  of  fact,  I  say 
the  mental  operation  is  justified  when  I  can  substitute  for  the 
idea  the  percept  which  it  is  supposed  to  represent,  or  can  know 
indirectly  that  this  might  be  done  according  to  known  laws  of 
the  appearance  and  disappearance  of  percepts.  Thus  I  perceive 
the  outside  of  a  tree-trunk  and  form  an  idea  of  what  lies  under 
the  bark.  I  have  reason  to  know  that  by  stripping  off  the  bark 
I  can  substitute  for  the  image  I  have  formed  the  corresponding 
percept.  And  if  I  see  at  a  distance  a  similar  tree  growing  upon 
an  inaccessible  cliff,  and  form  an  image  of  what  lies  under  its 
bark,  I  may  still  regard  this  as  justified  by  the  possibility  of 
referring  to  cases  in  which  a  similar  image,  arising  out  of  a  similar 
experience,  has  been  found  to  be  justified.  It  is  a  legitimate  in- 
ference that,  if  circumstances  were  somewhat  different,  the  proper 
percept  might  take  the  place  of  this  image  too.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  the  word  "justified"  cannot  be  used  in  thfsor  any 
analogous  sense  in  speaking  of  the  relation  not  of  an  image  to  a 
percept,  but  of  an  image  or  a  percept  to  a  something  that,  by 
hypothesis,  cannot  itself  enter  into  experience  at  all.  What  then 
can  the  word  mean  ?  It  at  first  interests  us  to  know  that  "  some 
Snarks  are  Boojums,"  but  our  interest  lapses  when  we  discover 
that  we  have  absolutely  no  mark  by  which  we  may  know  a  Boojum 
from  anything  else. 

But  I  must  not  be  drawn  into  digressions.  The  points  with 
which  I  am  concerned  are  these : — FIRST  :  When  a  man  says  he 
sees  this  tree  or  that  house,  he  ordinarily  speaks  as  if  there  were 


28 

but  the  one  object  in  his  thought.  If  he  distinguishes  at  all 
between  an  immediate  and  a  mediate  object,  the  language  that 
he  uses  would  not  indicate  that  he  does  so.  And  even  after  men 
have  entered  into  lengthy  arguments  for  the  purpose  of  marking 
this  distinction,  and  insisting  that  things  are  not  single  as  they 
seem  to  the  unreflective,  they  still  indulge  in  this  peculiar  use  of 
language,  which  would  imply  either  that  they  have  forgotten  for 
the  time  being  their  own  distinction  between  the  immediate  and 
the  mediate,  or  that  they  regard  the  two  as  the  same  in  Sense  I, 
and  to  be  treated  as  one.  Certainly,  in  their  reasonings  upon 
this  subject,  men  who  hold  to  the  two  kinds  of  objects  do  con- 
found them  with  one  another,  and  strengthen  their  faith  in  the 
two  by  this  misconception,  as  I  shall  show  later.  We  have  here, 
then,  what  we  may  call  a  kind  of  sameness,  or  pseudo-sameness, 
which  deserves  investigation,  and  which  one  should  be  careful  not 
to  confound  with  sameness  of  other  kinds.  Whether  the  word  same 
is  commonly  applied  in  the  premises  is  indifferent  to  my  purpose. 
In  the  remainder  of  the  present  section  I  will  consider  the  rela- 
tion between  the  mental  representative  and  its  assumed  cor- 
relatives. 

SECOND:  If  we  are  to  accept  not  merely  the  world  of  objects 
immediately  known,  but  also  a  world  or  two  worlds  corresponding 
to  this,  and  yet  distinct  from  it,  we  cannot  be  sure  our  list  of 
samenesses  is  complete  unless  we  traverse  in  our  search  for  the 
different  kinds  all  the  spheres  of  being  in  which  we  believe,  and 
of  which  we  think  we  can  have  some  knowledge.  In  the  section 
following  this  one  I  will  try  to  discover  the  kinds  of  sameness 
which  a  believer  in  "external"  things  may  reasonably  attribute 
to  them  within  their  own  sphere.  In  this  there  is  no  question 
of  the  relation  of  something  in  one  sphere  to  a  correlative  some- 
thing in  another. 

For  the  first  point.  What  is  in  a  man's  mind  when  he  is  think- 
ing of  his  percept  as  having  a  "  real"  object  corresponding  to  it, 


29 

I  have  shown  to  be  as  follows :  He  has  in  mind  an  immediate 
object  and  a  duplicate  of  this,  not  necessarily  altogether  like  it, 
imagined  as  standing  in  a  causal  relation  to  it  and  represented  by 
it.  When  it  occurs  to  him  that  this  imagined  duplicate  is  itself 
an  immediate  object  and  not  the  "real"  one,  he  does  as  much 
for  it,  and  provides  it  with  a  similar  duplicate.  In  every  case, 
when  he  tries  to  think  of  an  object  immediately  perceived  as 
having  a  "real"  correlate,  he  simply  furnishes  it  with  an  imagi- 
nary double  in  this  way.  What  else  is  he  to  do  ?  He  is  trying 
to  think  of  two  objects ;  the  "real "  object  cannot,  it  is  said,  be  in 
the  mind ;  he  must  then  imagine  it.  If  he  is  a  Lockian  he  will 
have  in  mind  the  immediate  object  and -two  imaginary  ones,  one 
signifying  the  "real"  object  as  a  bundle  of  qualities,  and  the 
other,  a  highly  vague  one,  picturing  the  "substance." 

Now,  since  this  is  all  that  can  be  before  the  man's  mind,  any 
kind  of  sameness  which  concerns  the  percept  and  the  "real" 
thing  must  mean  to  him  some  relation  between  the  immediate  object 
and  the  image  or  images  of  which  I  have  spoken.  When  this  is 
realized  it  is  seen  that  we  have  here  not  a  new  kind  of  same- 
ness, a  distinct  experience,  but  a  kind  already  discussed.  The 
relation  between  the  immediate  object  and  the  images  described 
is  simply  that  between  representative  and  thing  represented. 
This  I  have  already  examined  within  the  field  of  what  is  recog- 
nized as  immediately  known.  Here,  too,  it  would  seem  that  we 
are  in  the  field  of  the  immediately  known,  since  we  have  to  do 
with  percepts  and  ideas,  but  though  these  images  are  in  this  field, 
they  are  here,  so  to  speak,  under  protest,  and  their  framing  is 
supposed  to  be  justified1  only  by  something  assumed  to  be  not 
in  this  field.  When  this  something  is  v  thought  of  at  all  it  is 
thought  of  in  just  the  way  I  have  described.  This  is  what  think- 
ing it  means.  Nevertheless,  this  duplicate  world  is  assumed  to 

1 1  have  already  pointed  out  the  vagueness  in  this  word. 


30 

be  a  world  apart,  and  for  this  reason  I  have  considered  the  same- 
ness of  percepts  and  their  corresponding  "real"  objects  by  itself. 
It  gives  us  sameness  in  sense  seventh. 

In  writing  the  foregoing  I  have  had  in  mind  chiefly  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Lockian.  I  need  not  consider  at  length  that  taken  by 
the  Kantian,  for  what  I  have  said  will,  with  little  change,  apply 
to  it  also.  If  I  hold  to  a  "noumenon"  as  corresponding  to  my 
"phenomenon,"  and  yet  deny  to  it  all  qualities  whatsoever,  I  must, 
to  retain  any  appearance  of  consistency,  represent  it  in  my  mind 
in  the  very  vaguest  possible  way.  Nevertheless,  I  must  repre- 
sent it,  or  I  am  not  thinking  of  it  at  all,  and  I  must  relate  the  phe- 
nomenon and  this  vague  representation  in  the  way  described. 
A  true  consistency  would,  of  course,  make  impossible  the  whole 
process,  for  it  would  make  impossible  the  giving  of  any  quality  at 
all  to  the  representation,  and  the  putting  any  relation  between  it 
and  the  phenomenon.  In  so  dark  a  night  cats  do  not  merely 
turn  grey,  they  disappear.  On  the  other  hand,  if  one  is  too 
liberal  with  this  "  noumenon,"  it  palpably  ceases  to  be  a  "  noume- 
non," and  degenerates  into  something  very  like  a  "phenomenon." 
The  illusion  must  not  be  lost.  Both  these  conflicting  tendencies 
may  be  well  illustrated  in  Mr.  Spencer's  "  Unknowable."  If  we 
really  refuse  to  allow  to  the  consciousness  of  it  "any  qualitative 
or  quantitative  expression  whatever," l  our  vague  image  wholly 
disappears  and  there  is  nothing  left  in  our  consciousness  but  the 
"phenomenon."  While  if  we  follow  the  "First  Principles"  in 
coaxingitback  into  existence  by  allowing  it  reality,2  and  causality,3 
and  a  freedom  from  limits,4  and  printing  its  name  with  a  capital 
letter,5  as  though  it  were  even  better  than  other  things — if  we 
do  all  this  there  is  danger  of  the  convalescent's  becoming  too 

1  First  Principles.    Part  I,  Chap.  4,  §  26.    N.  Y.,  1888,  p.  91. 

2  Ibid.    Chap.  4,  §  24 ;  Chap.  5,  §§  31,  32,  et  Passim. 

3  Ibid.    Chap.  5,  §  31,  et  passim. 

Chap.  4,  §  24.  5  Ibid.    Chap.  5,  §  32,  et  passim. 


robust  altogether.  The  problem  has  its  parallel  in  the  practical 
problem  of  paying  wages : — one  must  not  pay  too  little,  or  he 
loses  his  laborer;  nor  too  much,  or  he  loses  his  money.  The 
thing  is  to  find  the  happy  mean  which  will  keep  an  object  of 
thought  before  a  man's  mind  and  yet  not  make  him  lose  all  ap- 
pearance of  consistency. 

But  in  which  ever  of  the  ways  mentioned  a  man  thinks  of  "real" 
things,  he  does  what  I  have  described.  And  when  he  implies 
that  the  immediately  known  and  the  "real"  are  in  some  sense 
the  same,  as  he  does  when  he  talks  as  if  there  were  but  the  one 
object,  or  asserts  that  we  do  not  know  things  as  they  are  in 
themselves  but  only  as  they  appear  to  us ;  he  really  uses  the 
word  same  in  the  fifth  sense  that  I  have  given.  The  fact  that 
he  is  using  it  to  indicate  the  relation  between  percepts  and  a 
•certain  class  of  ideas  which  he  has  come  to  regard  as  duplicates  of 
his  percepts  does  not  make  the  use  of  the  word  a  new  one.  What- 
ever may  be  the  state  of  affairs  outside  of  his  consciousness, 
this  is  all  that  takes  place  within  it ;  and  the  word  same,  used  in 
this  connection,  can  mean  no  more  to  him  than  I  have  said. 

SEC.  9.  To  avoid  needless  prolixity  I  will  class  together  and 
very  briefly  treat  of  the  kinds  of  sameness  which  one  may 
attribute  to  "external"  things.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  at 
length  into  the  discussion  of  these,  for  since  the  "external" 
world,  as  it  is  assumed  by  those  who  have  faith  in  it,  is,  to  the 
man  thinking  it,  simply  a  more  or  less  modified  duplicate  of  the 
world  of  things  immediately  perceived ;  and  since  all  ground  for 
attributing  to  it  any  determinations  at  all  must  be  found  in  that 
which  is  immediately  perceived ;  we  may  naturally  look  to  find  in 
it  nothing  that  we  have  not  already  found  in  this  immediate 
world.  How,  indeed,  could  anything  else  get  into  it  ?  We  can- 
not have  in  mind  what  is  by  hypothesis  out  of  mind.  The  "real'' 
world  is  then,  in  the  mind  of  the  man  who  thinks  it,  a  world  of 


imagined  objects,  and  the  world  of  imagination  depends  for  its 
material  upon  the  world  of  sense.  A  little  reflection  will  show 
that  the  kinds  of  sameness  of  these  "realities"  are  only  the 
kinds  of  sameness  already  discussed  duplicated,  and  assumed  to 
belong  to  a  new  world. 

1.  An  "external"  quality  or  group  of  qualities  may  be  said  to 
be  the  same  with   itself  at   any  one  instant.     Here  we  have 
Sense  I  carried  over  into  the  field  of  imagined  duplicates. 

2.  An  "external"  quality  existing  at  one  time  may  be  said  to 
be  the  same  with  an  "external"  quality  existing  at  another  time, 
to  indicate  that  the  two  are  similar.     The  same  thing  may  be  true 
of  any  group  of  qualities.     Here  we  have  Sense  II. 

3.  The  "external"  bundle  of  qualities,  which  formed  for  Locke 
the  knowable  element  in  a  thing  or  "body,"  may  be  regarded  as 
being  the  same  at  two  different  times — as  having,  so  to  speak,  a 
life-history.     Here  one  is  simply  calling  up  in  thought  the  expe- 
rience described  under  Sense  III. 

4.  Two  "external"   things  (bundles  of  "real"  qualities),  or 
two  "external"  qualities,  existing  at  one  time, may  be  called  the 
same  to  mark  similarity.     Here  we  have  Sense  IV. 

5.  An  "external"  thing  (in  the  sense  just  indicated),  or  an 
"external"  quality,  may  be  called  the  same  with  its  representa- 
tive.    If  this  representative  be  the  immediate  object  of  knowl- 
edge, we  have  the  experience  described  as  Sense  VII.     If  it  be 
another  "external"  thing  or  quality,  e.  g.,  an  "external"  picture 
in  an  "external"   mirror,  an   "external"  statue  in  "external" 
marble,  etc.,  we  have  Sense  V. 

6.  Two  men  may  be  said  to  perceive  the  same  "external" 
thing.     In  saying  this  one  simply  calls  up  in  mind  the  complex 
described  at  length  under  VI,  but  makes  the  duplicate,  which  is, 
to  him,  the  thing,  stand  in  the  complex  in  the  place  of  the  per- 
cept, this  being  now  regarded  as  a  mere  representative. 


33 

7.  An  "external"  thing  may  be  said  to  be  the  same  with  its 
representative  in  consciousness  or  with  the  substance  or  noume- 
non  assumed  to  underlie  it.  Here  we  have  Sense  VII. 

It  would  seem  scarcely  necessary  to  mention  this  last,  since,  if 
the  representative  in  consciousness  can  be  called  the  same  with 
its  "real"  correlate,  it  would  seem  self-evident  that  the  "real" 
correlate  may  be  called  the  same  with  it.  I  add  it,  however,  for 
the  sake  of  completeness.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  this  last 
kind  of  sameness  we  step  over  the  limits  of  any  one  class  of 
being,  ideas,  things  (as  bundles  of  qualities),  or  substance.  The 
word  is  used  to  denote  a  relation  between  something  in  one  class 
and  a  corresponding  thing  in  another  class. 

In  the  foregoing  I  have  been  considering  the  sameness  of  "real" 
or  "external"  things  regarded  as  bundles  of  qualities.  If  one  ask 
concerning  the  sameness  of  Locke's  "substance,"  or  the  "noume- 
non"  of  other  writers,  I  would  say  that  our  notions  of  this  must 
vary  with  the  kind  of  being  we  allow  this  nebulous  entity.  Strict 
consistency  in  dealing  with  a  noumenon  as  sometimes  defined 
means,  of  course,  its  utter  collapse.  If,  however,  we  keep  any- 
thing in  mind  at  all,  we  must  carry  over  to  it;  at  least  the  first  of 
the  kinds  of  sameness  described.  I  do  not  think  it  would  be 
hard  to  show  that  several  other  kinds  are  carried  over  in  despite 
of  consistency  by  men  who  hold  to  this  shadowy  something 
under  one  name  or  another. 

As,  however,  we  do  not  find  here  any  new  sense  of  the  word 
same,  but  mere  repetition  in  a  new  field  (if  one  may  call  it  such), 
it  seems  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  this  part  of  my  subject. 

I  have  not  discussed  at  all  the  sameness  of  things  from  the 
point  of  view  of  an  adherent  of  that  Natural  Realism  which 
claims  that  we  know  immediately  real  things  and  yet  holds  that 
real  things  are  not  our  perceptions  themselves,  but  something 
extra-mental.  This  view  is  so  incoherent  that  it  is  not  likely  to 


34 

be  taken  seriously  by  men  who  have  learned  to  reflect  at  all.  I 
may  say,  however,  en  passant,  that  it  does  not  add  to  the  kinds  of 
sameness  I  have  described  :  it  merely  confounds  them  one  with 
another,  and  falls  into  the  inconsequences  which  naturally  result 
from  so  doing. 

SEC.  10.  When  we  come  to  the  question  of  the  sameness  of 
the  Self  or  Ego  we  are,  if  possible,  on  more  debatable  ground 
than  heretofore.  The  whole  subject  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
Self  lies  as  yet,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  very  much  in  the  dark. 
Without  undertaking  the  task  of  defining  narrowly  what  this 
elusive  something  is,  it  would  seem  that  I  may  safely  make  con- 
cerning it  at  least  the  following  assertions  : 

In  using  the  word  self,  we  may  have  reference  either  to  what 
is  immediately  known  as  appearing  in  the  circle  of  consciousness, 
the  phenomenon,  or  to  a  something  supposed  to  lie  beyond  this 
sphere  and  to  be  known  only  through  its  representative  in 
consciousness. 

Now  this  something  beyond  may  be  looked  at  in  various  ways. 
John  Locke,  in  discussing  the  not-self,  made  the  three-fold 
division  of  idea,  bundle  of  "  real"  qualities,  and  substance.  He 
might  with  equal  reason  have  distinguished  in  a  similar  way 
between  the  self  as  idea  (the  immediately  known),  the  self  as  a 
bundle  of  "  real"  qualities  (not  immediately  known),  and  the  self 
as  substance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  he  did  not  put  the 
not-self  and  the  self  upon  the  same  plane.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  we  know  the  self  more  immediately,  and  to  hold  that  it 
enters  consciousness  as  the  bundle  of  "  real"  qualities1  which,  in 
the  case  of  matter,  is  assumed  to  lie  beyond.  The  "  substance'* 
of  the  self,  however,  he  condemns  to  outer  darkness  and  the 
company  of  material  substance.  To  me  there  seems  no  reason, 
admitting  the  right  to  pass  at  all  beyond  the  immediately  per- 

1  Compare  Bk.  4,  Ch.  9,  §  3  of  the  "  Essay,"  with  Bk.  4,  Ch.  n,  §§  i,  4,  7,  8,  and  9. 


35 

ceived,  for  making  the  distinction  which  he  does  make.  And  as 
one,  who  has  followed  him  with  assent  in  his  treatment  of  the 
not-self,  may  with  some  justice  complain  of  his  inconsistency 
and  refuse  to  follow  him  here,  I  mention  the  position  he  might 
have  taken  as  well  as  the  position  he  actually  did  take  with 
respect  to  the  self  and  its  existences. 

SEC.  ii.  The  word  self  may  then  be  regarded  as  referring 
either  : 

1.  To  the  self  as  phenomenon,  a  something  immediately  per- 
ceived, a  part  or  the  whole  of  our  conscious  experience  ; 

2.  To  a  complex  of  "  real"  qualities  beyond  and  represented 
by  the  self  as  it  appears  in  consciousness ; 

3.  To  the  substance  of  self,  or  self  as  noumenon,  a  vague  and 
ill-defined  something,  supposed  to  be  distinct  from  and  to  under- 
lie phenomena  or  "  real"  qualities  ;  or 

4.  To  two,  or  to  all,  of  these  taken  together. 

If  the  word  is  used  in  the  last  of  these  senses  any  inquiry 
concerning  sameness  must  split  up  its  complex  meaning  and  treat 
separately  the  different  elements  included.  It  remains,  then,  to 
inquire  what  kinds  of  sameness  we  may  attribute  to  the  self  in 
the  first  three  senses  given.  I  will  take  them  in  reverse  order. 

SEC.  12.  With  respect  to  the  third  sense,  which  makes  it 
refer  to  the  "substance"  of  Locke  or  the  "noumenon"  of  other 
writers :  all  the  difficulties  which  arise  out  of  the  endeavor  to 
attribute  sameness  of  any  kind  to  any  substance  or  noumenon 
obtain  here  also.  But  it  seems  on  the  surface  more  glaringly 
inconsistent  in  the  adherent  of  noumena  to  discriminate  between 
different  kinds  as  admitting  of  differences  of  treatment  than  it 
does  for  him  to  suppose  them  capable  of  treatment  at  all. 
Things  that  differ  cannot  be  conceived  as  differing  except  in 
qualities,  and  here  there  is  question  not  of  qualities  but  of 
noumena.  If  one  is  to  retain  any  appearance  of  consistency,  he 


36 

must  not  maintain  that  the  word  same  is  applicable  in  any  given 
sense  to  certain  noumena  and  not  to  others.  If  he  does  so,  he 
openly  abandons  his  noumena  to  a  phenomenal  fate.  And,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  think  it  is  plain  that  those  believers  in  noumena> 
who  distinguish  them  from  one  another,  yet  think  of  them  in 
just  the  one  way.  If  we  take  the  utterances  of  a  good  repre- 
sentative of  the  class,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  we  may  see  that 
although  he  distinguishes  between  the  noumenal  ego  and  the 
noumenal  non-ego,  not  only  do  his  clearest  statements  make  such 
a  distinction  out  of  the  question,  but  the  distinction  drawn  is  so 
vague  and  insignificant1  that  the  two  noumena  may  be  thought 
of  and  reasoned  about  in  the  one  way.  Phenomena  being 
abstracted,  what  was  in  his  mind  when  he  spoke  of  the  one  was 
probably  in  no  respect  different  from  what  was  in  his  mind  when 
he  spoke  of  the  other.  In  so  far,  then,  as  the  noumena  them- 
selves are  concerned,  it  would  seem  that  any  kind  of  sameness 
which  we  may  predicate  of  the  noumenal  not-self  we  may  pre- 
dicate on  the  same  ground  and  with  equal  justice  of  the  noume- 
nal self,  and  vice  versa.  If,  however,  any  sense  of  the  word  same 
marks  a  relation  between  a  noumenon  and  some  other  thing  or 
things,  and  if  the  two  noumena  differ  as  respects  this  relation, 
then  this  kind  of  sameness  may  be  attributed  to  the  one  and  not 
to  the  other.  It  may  be  claimed  that  we  indicate  just  such  a 
relation  in  using  the  word  same  in  Sense  VI ;  and  that,  whatever 
one  might  do,  one  would  under  no  circumstances  speak  of  two 
men  as  perceiving  the  same  self,  noumenal  or  any  other.  I  shall 
discuss  this  point  when  I  come  to  discuss  the  sameness  of  self  as 
phenomenon. 

I  may  add  here  that  when  one  obliterates  the  distinction 
between  noumena  by  plunging  them  into  the  darkness  of  the 
"  unknowable,"  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  question  of  a  new  sense 

1  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  VIII,    N.  Y.,  1880,  p.  97. 


37 

of  the  word  same  in  the  field  I  am  discussing.  On  the  general 
question  of  noumenal  sameness,  all  that  it  seems  to  me  necessary 
to  say  I  have  said  before. 

SEC.  13.  The  second  sense  of  the  word  self  would  make  it  a 
complex  of  "real"  qualities  beyond,  and  represented  by,  the  self 
as  it  appears  in  consciousness.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the 
fact  that  one  would  attribute  to  the  self,  so  considered,  one  class 
of  qualities,  and  to  the  not-self  another  class,  would,  when  the 
two  "real"  objects  are  considered  in  themselves,  prevent  one's 
ascribing  to  the  former  all  the  kinds  of  sameness  which  one  may 
ascribe  to  the  latter,  or  would  justify  the  assumption  of  a  new 
kind  of  sameness  proper  only  to  the  former.  In  discussing  the 
sameness  of  "  external"  things  I  have  not  made  any  one  kind  of 
it  dependent  upon  the  peculiar  quality  of  their  qualities,  if  I  may 
so  speak.  I  considered  them  only  as  groups  of  qualities  in  gen- 
eral, supposed  to  be  external  to  consciousness.  The  idea  of  the 
"real"  self  is  in  its  general  character  essentially  similar  to  that 
of  the  "  real"  not-self.  Provided  that  the  two  classes  of  quali- 
ties have  enough  in  common  to  be  properly  called  qualities,  and 
to  be  capable  of  being  related  to  each  other  in  groups,  they  may 
differ  in  kind  toto  ccelo  without  necessitating  a  difference  of 
treatment  from  the  point  of  view  with  which  I  am  at  present 
concerned.  It  is  very  evident,  however,  that  those  who  have 
thought  of  the  self  as  a  "  real"  thing,  distinct  from  conscious- 
ness, and  yet  to  be  in  some  way  intelligibly  represented  in 
thought,  have  had  a  tendency  to  represent  it  very  much  as  they 
have  represented  material  objects.  There  has  been  a  general 
effort  to  get  rid  of  the  idea  of  extension,  but  this  has  been 
shown  rather  in  reducing  the  size  of  the  object  and  attributing 
to  it  inconsistent  space  relations  than  in  denying  it  such  rela- 
tions altogether.  Bishop  Butler's  argument  for  immortality 
from  the  indiscerptibility  of  the  uncompounded  shows  that  he 


33 

thought  of  the  self  as  he  thought  of  a  material  atom,1  and  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  scholastic  notion  of  the  ubiquity  of  the  soul 
in  the  bodily  organism — "  all  in  the  whole  and  all  in  every 
part"2 — makes  it  sufficiently  clear  that  he  thought  of  it  so,  too  ; 
though,  to  be  sure,  such  ubiquity  would  make  of  it  a  very  queer 
atom  indeed.  If,  then,  the  man,  who  holds  to  the  self  in  the 
second  sense  of  the  word,  calls  up  in  using  the  word  a  mental 
complex  like  that  which  represents  to  him  a  "  real"  not-self, 
there  is  all  the  more  reason  why  we  should  not  expect  to  find 
anything  in  his  thought  which  would  suggest  a  new  kind  of 
sameness  within  the  sphere  of  the  "  real"  self.  It  remains,  of 
course,  to  notice  here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  noumenal  self,  that 
any  sense  of  the  word  same  which  has  reference  not  so  much  to 
the  things  under  discussion  as  to  the  relations  of  -these  things  to 
other  things,  may,  if  self  and  not-self  differ  as  to  these  relations, 
be  applicable  to  the  one  and  not  to  the  other.  Thus  Sense  VI 
may  be  regarded  as  inapplicable  to  the  "  real"  self.  I  will  discuss 
this  point  more  fully  in  a  few  moments.  With  this  one  excep- 
tion we  may,  therefore,  I  think,  apply  the  kinds  of  sameness 
enumerated  under  Sec.  9  as  obtaining  in  the  sphere  of  "  external" 
things  to  the  "  real"  self  also,  and  it  would  seem  that  no  new 
kinds  are  to  be  added.  It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  here  the 
classification  already  given. 

SEC.  14.  We  come  finally  to  the  self  as  a  something  immedi- 
ately perceived,  the  self  as  phenomenon  or  idea.  I  do  not  mean 
to  use  these  names  in  a  question-begging  way,  and  I  will  try  to 
exhaust  all  reasonable  possibilities  in  discussing  it  and  its  same- 
nesses. 

Now,  whatever  the  self  is,  it  would  seem  that  it  must  be,  in 

1 "  Analogy,"  Part  i.  Chap.  i. 

s  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  XXV.,  N.  Y.,  1880,  p.  356.  Hamilton's  utterances  concern- 
ing "reality"  are  incoherent,  and  inconsistent.  I  do  him  no  injustice,  however,  if  I  give  the 
above  as  "  one  of  his  views." 


39 

so  far  as  it  is  a  thing  immediately  known,  either  a  part  or  the 
whole  of  consciousness,  or  one  or  the  other  of  these  regarded  in 
some  peculiar  aspect  or  relation. 

If  it  be  a  part  of  consciousness,  recognized  as  distinct  from 
another  part,  the  non-ego,  we  may  reasonably  maintain : 

1.  That  the  perceived  self  is  at  any  moment  what  it  is — is 
the  same  with  itself.     The  question  whether  it  be  simple  and 
unanalyzable  does  not  affect  the  problem.      This  is  sameness  in 
sense  I. 

2.  That  if  it  be  simple  and  unanalyzable,  this  simple  element 
of  consciousness  may  be  the  same  at  two  different  times,  and  if 
complex,  two  elements  or  two  complexes  of  elements,  belonging 
to  different  times  may  be  the  same.     This  is  sameness  in  sense  II. 

3.  That  if  we  regard  the  self  as  an  object  having  a  life-history, 
as  consisting  of  successive  elements  united  in  a  series  as  sense 
elements  are  united  in  the  series  which  is  for  us  a  material  object 
(immediately  known),  we  may  speak  of  its  being  the  same  on 
two  successive  days,  even  though  it  exhibit  dissimilar  qualities, 
primary  reference  being  had  not  to  likeness  of  elements,  but  to 
the  experience  which  has  been  described  at  length  in  discussing 
sense  III. 

4.  That  we  may  speak  of  two  selves,  of  two  elements  of  two 
selves  (if  selves  be  complex),  or  of  two  elements  of  one  self  (if 
one  self  may  contain  two  such  elements),  as  at  any  one  time  the 
same,  to  indicate  that  they  are  similar.     This  is  sameness  in 
sense  IV.     It  should  be  kept  in  mind,  however,  that  we  never 
look  upon  one  consciousness  as  containing  two  selves  as  it  con- 
tains one  self,  or  as  it  may  contain  two  material  objects  (imme- 
diately known).     The  second  self  in  mind  is  recognized  as  present 
only  as  an  imagined  object.     Nevertheless  it  would  seem  quite 
proper  to  use  the  word  same  to  mark  this  relation  of  similarity 
between  the  perceived  self  and  an  imagined  self,  just  as  we  use 


40 

it  to  mark  a  likeness  of  two  material  objects,  or  of  one  material 
object  and  the  memory  image  of  such  an  object. 

5.  That  we  may  speak  of  the  self  and  its  representative  as  the 
same.     The  memory  image  of  a  later  time  may  stand  for  the 
self  as  experienced  at  an  earlier.     Unless  it  be  claimed  that  yes- 
terday's consciousness  of  self  is  actually  to-day's  consciousness, 
one  must  admit  that  the  self  remembered  is  the  self  known 
through  its  proxy.     And  one  may  in  his  reasonings  about  the 
self  use  as  a  symbol  the  pronoun  "  I,"  paying  little  attention  as 
he  goes  along  to  what  it  stands  for,  and  yet  knowing  it  may 
serve  in  place  of  the  obscure  something  it  represents.     These  are 
instances  of  sameness  in  sense  V. 

6.  That  we  never  use  the  word  same  in  sense  VI  in  speaking 
of  the  self  as  we  do  in  speaking  of  the  not-self.      We  do  not  say 
two  men  perceive  the  same  self  as  we  say  they  perceive  the  same 
tree  or  house.     The  familiar  distinction  between  the  subjective 
and  the  objective  marks  out  the  latter  as  in  a  sense,  peculiar  to 
itself,  common  and  impersonal. 

I  have  already  shown  what  we  have  in  mind  when  we  say  two 
men  see  the  same  material  thing.  We  have  a  picture  of  the 
thing,  and  of  the  bodies  of  the  two  men  in  a  certain  relation  to 
it ;  and  we  imagine  a  copy  of  the  thing  as  in  some  way  connected 
with  each  of  these  bodies,  and  due  to  its  relation  to  the  thing. 
When  relations  to  a  material  object  are  in  question  all  the  bodies 
in  a  consciousness  are  on  a  par.  We  may  directly  perceive  the 
one  thing  and  two  or  more  bodies  holding  similar  relations  to  it. 
But  it  is  not  so  in  the  case  of  selves.  The  one  self  that  we  find 
in  each  consciousness  seems  to  be  peculiarly  related  to  one  body 
to  the  exclusion  of  others.  And  as  we  have  not,  in  the  case  of 
this  self,  the  conditions  which  led  us  to  mark  the  similar  relations 
of  two  human  bodies  (our  representatives  of  the  men)  to  one 
material  object,  by  saying  two  men  see  the  same  thing,  we,  of 


41 

course,  do  not  say  that  two  men  see  the  same  self.  The  word 
same,  in  sense  VI,  we  may  regard,  then,  as  inapplicable  to  the 
self  as  immediately  known.1  This  appears  to  be  due,  however, 
not  to  the  nature  of  this  self  in  itself  considered,  but  to  its 
peculiar  relation  to  the  other  things  in  a  consciousness. 

Moreover,  since  the  other  two  selves,  the  self  as  group  of 
"real"  qualities  and  the  self  as  noumenon,  are  to  us,  as  it  were, 
shadows  cast  by  the  self  immediately  known — assumed  to  exist 
only  because  this  is  known  to  exist,  and  thought  of  as  "present" 
only  because  this  is  known  to  be  present — since,  I  say,  these 
two  selves  hold  in  our  thought  this  peculiar  relation  of  depen- 
dence upon  the  self  in  consciousness,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  we 
never  find  any  one  speaking  of  two  men  as  seeing  the  same 
"  real"  self  as  one  might  readily  speak  of  two  men  as  seeing  the 
same  "real"  tree.  One  says  he  has  evidence  that  two  men  see 
the  same  "  real"  tree,  when  he  has  or  can  have  in  conscious- 
ness an  immediately  perceived  tree  and  two  immediately  per- 
ceived human  bodies  in  a  certain  relation  to  it.  If  no  one  had 
ever  had  this  experience  in  the  sphere  of  the  immediately 
known,  we  have  no  reason  to  think  any  one  would  ever  nave 
thought  of  applying  the  phrase  in  question  to  a1  tree  mediately 
known.  And  as  we  do  not  have  a  similar  experience  touching 
the  self  in  consciousness,  it  is  only  natural  to  find  that  no  one 
applies  the  phrase  to  any  self  out  of  consciousness.  When 
things  differ  their  shadows  ought  to  differ  too.  Sameness  in 
sense  VI  we  may  regard,  then,  as  not  attributable  to  self  in  any 
of  the  three  senses  of  the  word. 

7.  That,  finally,  there  seems  no  more  reason  why  one  should 
not  call  the  self  as  immediately  known  the  same  with  the  self  as 

1  Owing  to  the  ambiguity  already  pointed  out  as  existing  in  terms  which  stand  for  our 
objects  of  knowledge  and  our  knowledge  of  these  objects,  it  would  seem  almost  impossible  to 
avoid  misconception  without  unendurable  reiteration.  In  the  above  paragraph,  by  the  words 
"  body,"  "  object,"  "  self,"  etc.,  I  always  refer  to  things  immediately  known. 


42 

"external"  thing,  or  with  the  self  as  noumenon,  than  the  not- 
self  as  similarly  perceived  the  same  with  the  not-self  as  similarly 
inferred.  The  supposed  relationships  are  in  the  two  cases  exactly 
alike.  Here  we  have  sameness  in  sense  VII. 

SEC.  15.  If  we  claim  that  by  the  self  as  immediately  known 
we  understand  not  a  part  but  the  whole  of  consciousness,  we 
should  seem,  unless  we  in  some  way  modify  our  statement,  to  ob- 
literate the  distinction  between  self  and  not-self.  Still,  taking 
the  words  simply,  and  assuming  that  we  mean  by  self  all  that  is 
immediately  known,  we  do  not  find  that  this  will  necessitate  any 
important  difference  in  the  discussion  of  its  samenesses.  Con- 
sciousness as  a  whole  is  certainly  what  it  is,  or  the  same  with 
itself,  at  any  instant :  two  elements  in  it  belonging  to  different 
times,  or  two  complexes  of  elements  belonging  to  different  times 
may  be  the  same,  as  being  alike  ;  it  may  be  regarded  as  having 
a  life  history,  and  may  from  this  point  of  view  be  called  the 
same  at  different  times  without  regard  to  similarity ;  two  simul- 
taneous elements  or  complexes  of  elements  in  it  may  be  called 
the  same  to  mark  the  fact  that  they  resemble  each  other,  or  it, 
as  a  whole,  may  for  the  same  reason  be  called  the  same  with 
another  consciousness  (imagined)  ;  it  and  its  representative  (for 
example,  the  memory-image  of  its  former  self),  may  be  called  the 
same ;  and  we  may  use  the  word  same  to  indicate  its  relation  to 
its  supposed  "real"  correlate  in  an  extra-consciousness  world, 
whether  we  make  this  "  thing  "  or  "  noumenon." 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  preceding  I  have  allowed  the 
self,  considered  as  the  whole  of  consciousness,  all  the  kinds  of 
sameness  upon  my  list  except  the  sixth.  There  is,  however,  no 
objection,  except  that  arising  from  oddity  of  expression,  against 
allowing  it  this  kind  of  sameness  too.  If  we  really  mean  by  the 
self  the  whole  of  consciousness,  then  everything  immediately 
perceived  is  a  part  of  the  self.  If  then,  it  is  proper  to  say  two 


43 

men  see  the  same  tree,  one  may  go  on  to  say,  if  one  choses,  that 
two  men  see  a  part  of  the  one  self.  Such  an  expression  could, . 
of  course,  be  used  only  in  speaking  of  the  objective  part  of  this 
self,  the  part  which  those  who  distinguish  between  ego  and  non- 
ego  call  the  not-self.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  one  ever 
thinks  of  talking  in  this  way.  I  merely  mention  the  point  for 
the  sake  of  completeness  in  my  analysis. 

SEC.  16.  If  by  the  self  we  do  not  understand  a  part  or  the 
whole  of  consciousness  taken  simply,  but  the  one  or  the  other  of 
these  regarded  from  some  peculiar  point  of  view,  does  it  affect 
the  question  of  the  kinds  of  sameness  we  may  attribute  to  it  ? 
It  may  be  asserted,  for  example,  that  when  we  are  thinking  of 
the  world  of  things  immediately  perceived  as  conditioned  by  its 
relation  to  a  particular  organism  (also  immediately  perceived) — 
as  duplicated  by  a  pressure  on  the  eyes,  as  annihilated  by  a  blow 
on  the  head — we  make  these  things  mental,  and  properly  include 
them  under  the  head  of  self ;  whereas,  when  we  abstract  these 
same  things  in  thought  from  the  organism,  and,  so  to  speak, 
objectify  them,  we  properly  include  them  under  the  head  of  not- 
self.  We  are  thus  to  regard  the  one  thing  as  an  element  of  the 
self  or  of  the  not-self,  according  to  the  light  in  which  it  is  viewed. 
But  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  if  we  take  the  word  self  in  the 
sense  just  described,  or  in  any  analogous  sense,  we  need  alter  the 
list  of  samenesses  already  given.  We  are  still  considering  a  part 
or  the  whole  of  consciousness,  and  the  fact  that  we  are  viewing 
it  in  one  light  rather  than  another  would  not  apparently  influ- 
ence in  any  way  its  kinds  of  sameness. 

SEC.  17.  This  would  certainly  appear  to  be  the  case  if  we  take 
the  words/tfr/and  whole  of  consciousness  in  their  common  accep- 
tation, as  denoting  a  portion  or  the  totality  of  mental  elements 
(sensations,  feelings,  volitions,  ideas),  in  their  various  relations  to 
each  other.  It  remains,  however,  to  consider  a  position,  which, 


44 

it  may  be  claimed,  is  not  covered  by  the  foregoing  classification 
of  possible  positions,  when  the  words  "part"  and  "whole"  are 
thus  understood.  Suppose  that  one  distinguishes  in  the  Kantian 
fashion  between  the  form  and  the  matter  of  what  appears  in  con- 
sciousness, and  maintains  that  the  formal  element,  the  arrange- 
ment, or  "unity"  of  consciousness  is  to  be  attributed  to  mind, 
or,  if  you  please,  is  mind, and  for  "mind"  I  may  here  write  "self," 
while  the  matter  or  content,  the  raw  material  to  be  elaborated 
and  related,  is  to  be  distinguished  from  this  as  a  thing  apart. 
Can  it  be  shown  that  the  above  given  kinds  of  sameness  have 
significance  in  regard  to  the  self  so  understood?  Whether  we 
call  this  a/^r/of  consciousness  or  not  will  depend  on  our  use 
of  terms.  It  is  not  a  part,  as  commonly  understood,  nor  is  it  the 
whole  of  consciousness. 

Now,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  those  who  have  laid  most  em- 
phasis upon  this  formal  element  in  consciousness  have  been  very 
vague  in  their  treatment  of  it.  On  the  part  of  many  writers 
there  is  little  evidence  of  even  an  attempt  at  scientific  exacti- 
tude. And  yet  it  does  not  appear  that  the  subject  admits  of 
treatment  only  in  this  loose  and  unsatisfactory  way.  If  we  can 
discuss  it  at  all,  there  seems  no  reason  why,  with  increasing 
knowledge,  we  may  not  expect  to  discuss  it  with  accuracy  and 
precision. 

If  we  consider  this  formal  element  of  consciousness  in  a  con- 
crete instance,  it  may  help  us  to  classify  our  ideas  concerning 
it.  Let  us  imagine  three  points  in  such  relations  to  each  other 
that  when  each  is  connected  with  the  other  two  by  straight  lines 
we  have  an  equilateral  triangle.  The  three  points  are,  of 
course,  what  they  are  at  any  instant.  And  whatever  a  relation 
may  be,  if  the  mutual  relations  of  these  three  points  are  capa- 
ble of  being  considered  apart  from  the  points,  as  a  distinct 
element  in  consciousness,  there  appears  no  reason  why  we  should 


45 

not  assert  with  equal  justice  that  these  relations  are  what  they 
are  at  any  instant.  When  we  take  note  of  the  points  we  take 
note  of  the  relations,  and  we  do  not  confound  the  one  with  the 
other. 

And  just  as  I  may  say  that  such  a  set  of  three  points  imagined 
or  observed  now  is  the  same  with  another  and  a  similar  set 
imagined  or  observed  at  some  former  time,  meaning  by 
the  word  same  to  indicate  similarity,  and  not  sameness  in  the 
strict  sense  mentioned  just  above ;  so  there  appears  no  reason  at 
all  why  I  may  not  say  that  the  mutual  relations  of  the  one  set  of 
points  are  the  same  with  the  mutual  relations  of  the  other,  making 
here,  too,  the  distinction  between  sameness  in  the  former,  stricter, 
sense,  and  sameness  in  this  second  sense  of  similarity.  If  what 
is  contained  in  a  consciousness  at  any  one  instant,  is,  ipso  facto,  to 
be  distinguished  from  what  is  contained  in  it  at  any  other  instant, 
there  seems  equal  reason  for  making  this  distinction  in  the  mate- 
rial element  and  in  the  formal.  It  is  quite  true  that  men  are  not 
accustomed  to  carrying  this  distinction  into  the  region  of  form. 
The  whole  history  of  the  dispute  as  to  universals  is  evidence  of 
the  way  in  which  men  have  confounded  the  kinds  of  sameness ; 
but  I  fancy  that  even  those  who  would  clearly  recognize  that  red 
color  imagined  yesterday  and  red  color  imagined  to-day  are  the 
same  merely  in  being  similar,  or  in  standing  in  a  relation  of  origi- 
nal and  representative,  would  yet  not  think  of  distinguishing 
triangularity  noticed  yesterday  from  triangularity  noticed  to-day, 
and  marking  that  they  are  not  the  same  in  the  first  and  strictest 
sense  of  the  word.  And  yet  it  would  be  hard  to  show  why  two 
indistinguishably  similar  color  sensations,  existing  in  conscious- 
ness at  different  times,  are  to  be  kept  apart  in  thought  and 
recognized  as  two  sensations,  while  two  occurrences  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  triangularity  (I  use  the  clumsy  phrase  to  avoid  any 
question-begging  word),  are  not  to  be  distinguished  as  separate 


46 

in  a  similar  way.  To  say  that  the  formal  element  is  not  a  thing, 
but  an  activity,  does  not  alter  the  position.  If  an  activity  is 
enough  of  a  thing  to  be  talked  about  and  distinguished  from 
other  things,  we  may  surely  recognize  an  activity  in  conscious- 
ness yesterday  as  numerically  different  from  an  activity  in  con- 
sciousness to-day. 

Furthermore,  if,  instead  of  taking  as  simple  an  instance  of  form 
as  the  relations  of  the  three  points  I  have  been  discussing,  I 
choose  to  take  the  sum  total  of  the  relations  between  the  mate- 
rial elements  (here  I  use  material as  correlative  to  formal),  which 
go  to  make  up  the  life  history  of  a  material  object,  say  a  tree, 
why  may  I  not  speak  of  the  formal  tree  as  being  the  same  at  two 
times,  meaning  thereby  that  the  group  of  relations  co-existent 
at  any  one  time  may  be  regarded  as  representative  of  any  other 
group  belonging  to  the  one  series  or  of  the  whole  series  ?  To  be 
sure,  I  am  not  justified  by  common  usage  in  thus  speaking,  since 
common  usage  marks  only  distinctions  which  are  practically  im- 
portant, and  by  the  words  "the  same  tree"  includes  both  form 
and  matter.  Nevertheless,  I  can  see  no  reason  why,  if  this  ele- 
ment of  form  does  admit  of  being  considered  apart,  it  is  not 
at  least  possible  to  find  in  this  field  the  kind  of  sameness  we  have 
in  mind  when  we  say  that  we  have  seen  on  two  successive  days 
the  same  tree. 

Again,  if  I  can  speak  of  two  simultaneous  sensations  of  red. 
ness  in  one  consciousness  (e.  g.,  the  two  halves  of  a  red  surface), 
as  the  same,  meaning  to  indicate  simply  similarity,  why  may  I 
not  also  speak  of  two  simultaneous  "experiences  of  triangu- 
larity "  in  one  consciousness  as  the  same,  and  keep  clearly  in 
mind  here,  too,  that  I  mean  only  to  indicate  similarity  ?  If  I  can 
speak  of  a  sensation  or  a  complex  of  sensations  in  one  conscious- 
ness as  the  same  with  a  similar  sensation  or  group  of  sensations 
in  another,  and  yet  not  forget  that  I  am  dealing  with  two  things, 


47 

why  may  I  not  do  as  much  for  two  similar  relations  or  groups  of 
relations  in  two  consciousnesses  ?  If  in  the  one  case  I  do  not 
confound  sameness  in  the  sense  of  similarity  with  sameness  of 
the  kind  we  mean  when  we  say  each  thing  is  at  each  instant  the 
same  with  itself,  why  should  I  do  so  in  the  other  case  ?  If,  I 
repeat,  the  formal  element  in  consciousness  is  enough  of  a  thing 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  material  element  and  discussed, 
there  appears  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  open  to  distinc- 
tions of  this  kind. 

And  when  I  call  up  in  memory  a  triangle  once  seen,  the  mem- 
ory image  would  seem  to  stand  as  a  representative  of  the  orig- 
inal in  both  its  elements,  form  and  matter.  In  neither  should 
the  representative  be  confounded  with  the  original.  If  we  may 
use  the  word  same  to  indicate  this  peculiar  relation  of  represen- 
tation between  two  things  yet  recognized  as  two,  it  would  seem 
only  just  to  allow  this  distinction  as  much  in  the  case  of  triangu- 
larity as  in  the  case  of  redness  or  blueness. 

As  to  the  sixth  kind  of  sameness.  May  we  grant  this  to  the 
self,  if  by  self  we  mean  the  formal  element  of  consciousness  ?  I 
have  said  a  little  way  back,  before  taking  up  the  distinction  of 
formal  and  material,  that,  if  we  make  the  word  self  cover  all 
the  immediately  known,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  one's  saying 
that  two  men  see  a  part  of  the  same  self,  for  material  objects 
(immediately  known)  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  such  parts. 
And  here  it  is  evident  that  if  we  make  self  to  cover  the  whole  of 
the  formal  element  in  a  consciousness,  it  of  course  includes  the 
formal  element  in  what  we  may  call  the  objective  side  of  con- 
sciousness— the  side  which  is,  in  some  sense  of  the  words,  com- 
mon and  impersonal.  Now,  we  do  say  that  two  men  see  the 
same  tree,  and  by  tree,  the  man  who  distinguishes  between  form 
and  matter  means  a  certain  complex  containing  both  formal  and 
material  elements.  These  elements  he  believes  he  can  distin- 


48 

guish  from  one  another,  and  pay  attention  predominantly  now 
to  the  one,  and  now  to  the  other.  Does  it  not  seem  to  follow 
that  a  man  may  as  truly  be  said  to  see  the  formal  element  as 
the  material,  and  that  two  men  who  see  the  same  tree  may  with 
justice  be  said  to  see  the  same  shape  or  arrangement  of  parts? 
In  other  words,  may  we  not  apply  the  sixth  sense  of  the  word 
same  to  the  formal  element  in  consciousnesss  if  this  element  is 
a  thing  capable  of  treatment  at  all  ?  And  if  this  formal  element 
in  a  tree  seen  by  two  men  is  a  part  of  the  self,  why  may  we  not 
say  that  two  men  see  a  part  of  the  same  self,  even  though  we 
make  self  mere  form  ?  It  would  sound  very  odd  to  say  so,  of 
course,  but  that  should  not  weigh  with  a  philosopher,  if  consist- 
ency require  it. 

Finally,  if  I  may  call  an  immediately  perceived  object  the  same 
with  its  supposed  "external"  correlate,  not  confounding  the 
two,  but  merely  marking  by  the  word  a  peculiar  instance  of  the 
representative  relation,  why  may  I  not,  if  I  believe  that  "ex- 
ternal" things  stand  in  "real"  relations  to  each  other  truly  rep- 
resented by  our  perceptions  of  things  and  their  relations — why, 
in  this  case,  may  I  not  speak  of  the  relations,  "external"  and 
''internal,"  as  the  same,  without  on  that  account  forgetting  that 
I  am  pointing  out  a  relation  between  two  things  (if  I  may  thus 
speak  of  relations),  numerically  different  ?  Are  they  not  as  dif- 
ferent as  the  "matter"  of  consciousness  and  its  correlate  in  the 
"outer"  world? 

SEC.  1 8.  In  the  foregoing  I  have  endeavored  to  make  my  list 
of  the  kinds  of  sameness  complete.  I  can  think  of  nothing 
that  has  been  overlooked  ;  but  as  I  have  been  trying  to  force  a 
path  through  a  thicket  few  have  made  any  sustained  effort  to 
penetrate,  it  is  quite  possible  my  map  of  the  ground  may  need 
emendation.  I  shall  be  very  glad"  of  any  criticism  which  will 
help  me  to  improve  it.  And  as  the  many  divisions  made,  and  the 


49 

many  distinctions  drawn,  may  very  possibly  tend  to  produce  in 
one  who  has  followed  the  discussion  thus  far,  a  state  of  mind 
akin  to  that  of  the  "  true-begotten"  Gobbo,  when  he  was  oblig- 
ingly directed  to  the  Jew's  house  by  his  hopeful  son,  a  short 
summary  of  the  results  obtained  may  serve  to  facilitate  appre- 
hension and  intelligent  criticism. 

What  has  been  done  is  this  : 

I  began  by  considering  the  kinds  of  sameness  of  things  im- 
mediately known,  leaving  out  of  consideration  for  the  time  being 
the  sameness  of  the  self  or  ego.  This  resulted  in  the  following 
kinds : 

I.  Any  mental  element  or  complex  of  mental  elements  may  be 
said  to  be  the  same  with  itself  at  any  instant. 

II.  Any  mental  element  or  complex  of  mental  elements  in  ex- 
istence at  one  time  maybe  called  the  same  with  a  mental  element 
or  complex  of  mental  elements  existing  at  another  time,  to  indi- 
cate that  the  two  are  similar. 

III.  We  may   say  that  we  perceive  the  same  object   (com- 
plex of  mental  elements)  at  two  different  times,  when  we  do  not 
mean  that  what  is  actually  experienced  on  the  two  occasions  is 
the  same  in  either  of  the  preceding  senses ;  but  only  that  the 
two  experiences  are  terms  in  a  certain  series,  the  whole  of  which 
may  be  regarded  as  represented  by  any  part.     In  this  sense  does 
one  see  the  same  tree  on  two  succeeding  days. 

IV.  Any  two  mental  elements  or  complexes  of  mental  ele- 
ments in  consciousness  at  the  one  time  may  be  called  the  same 
to  mark  the  fact  that  they  are  alike. 

V.  Any  mental  element  or  complex  of  mental  elements  may 
be  called  the  same  with  its  representative,  whether  this  repre- 
sentative resemble  it  or  not. 

VI.  When  a  man  has  learned  from  experience  of  his  own  body 
(as  a  thing  immediately  known)  that  a  consciousness  of  his  body 


50 

in  a  certain  peculiar  relation  to  a  given  object  (complex  of  mental 
elements)  is  a  presupposition  to  a  consciousness  of  the  object, 
and  wishes  to  mark  the  fact  that  he  is  perceiving  or  imagining 
two  human  bodies  in  this  relation  to  a  single  object,  and  connect- 
ing in  thought  with  each  of  them  a  picture  of  the  object,  he 
may  say  that  he  is  perceiving  or  imagining  two  men  seeing  the 
same  object.  This  sense  of  the  word  same  obviously  expresses 
quite  a  complex  thought.  • 

VII.  In  addition  to  these  kinds  of  sameness  found  within  the 
sphere  of  the  immediately  known,  we  obtain  one  kind  by  step- 
ping beyond  it,  which,  since  we  step  beyond  it,  so  to  speak, 
with  only  one  foot,  may  be  here  mentioned  as  belonging  at  least 
partially  to  the  world  of  immediate  objects.  When  we  have 
come  to  believe  that  things  in  consciousness  have  their  correlates 
in  a  world  outside  of  consciousness,  we  may  speak  of  the  things, 
in  consciousness  as  the  same  with  their  "external"  correlates; 
or,  at  any  rate,  we  may  talk  of  them  as  if  they  were  the  same  in 
some  sense  of  the  word  which  will  allow  us  to  include  the  two 
(or  three)  distinct  things  under  one  name,  and  treat  them  as  one. 
This  is  constantly  done.  The  importance  of  remembering  that 
we  have  really  more  than  one  thing  to  consider,  it  would  seem 
scarcely  necessary  to  emphasize.  How  far  this  is  really  a  new 
kind  of  sameness  I  discussed  at  some  length. 

After  having  marked  these  seven  kinds  of  sameness  as  having 
to  do  with  the  immediately  known,  I  proceeded  to  consider  the 
kinds  of  sameness  which  may  obtain  in  a  world  or  worlds  beyond 
consciousness.  It  was  pointed  out  that  one  may  look  upon  the 
"  external"  in  three  ways.  One  may  believe  in  "  external" 
things  as  merely  bundles  of  "real"  qualities,  and  may  stop 
there :  or  one  may  believe  in  such  bundles  of  "  real"  qualities,, 
and  in  addition  hold  to  "substance"  or  "substratum"  as  an 
obscure  something  implied  by  these  "real"  qualities  :  or,  lastly,, 


one  may  hold  that  the  only  correlate  of  the  thing  in  conscious- 
ness is  "noumenon,"  a  thing  not  distinguishable  from  the 
"  substance"  above  mentioned. 

It  was  then  shown  that  a  realm  of  "external"  things,  consisting 
of  bundles  of  "real"  qualities  in  a  world  beyond  consciousness, 
would,  since  it  is  to  the  man  thinking  it  merely  a  duplicate  of  the 
immediate  world,  admit  of  the  existence  of  all  the  kinds  of  same- 
ness above  enumerated,  and  would  not  furnish  any  one  kind  which 
might  increase  the  list.  And  with  respect  to  the  "  external"  as 
noumenon,  it  was  stated  that  if  the  noumenal  be  represented  to  the 
mind  at  all,  at  least  the  first  kind  of  sameness  must  be  attri- 
buted to  it,  and  that  other  kinds  will  be,  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  clearness  allowed  this  vague  and  inconsistent  entity. 
No  new  kind  of  sameness  need,  however,  be  looked  for  in  this 
field.  If  one  hold  to  the  "external"  in  both  kinds,  he  must,  of 
course,  search  three  distinct  realms  of  being  before  he  can  be 
sure  that  he  has  not  overlooked  any  legitimate  sense  of  the  word 
same.  As  a  result  of  the  foregoing  analysis  we  may  maintain 
that,  whatever  be  his  belief  as  to  ideas,  things,  and  noumena,  his 
search  will  not  result  in  more  than  the  seven  kinds  of  sameness 
I  have  given.  In  the  assumed  new  fields  we  find  mere  repetition. 
The  pure  Idealist  would  reduce  the  list  to  six  by  dropping  off 
the  seventh  kind  altogether. 

Next,  as  to  the  sameness  of  the  Self  or  Ego.  It  was  pointed 
out  that  one  may  take  the  word  self  to  mean :  (i)  the  self  in 
consciousness,  or  as  phenomenon ;  (2)  the  self  as  bundle  of 
"real"  qualities  out  of  consciousness;  (3)  the  self  as  "sub- 
stance" or  "  noumenon ;"  (4)  two  of  these,  or  all  of  these, 
taken  together. 

It  was  said  that  as  the  fourth  sense  is  sufficiently  discussed  in 
examining  the  first  three,  it  would  not  be  separately  considered. 
The  three  remaining  senses  were  then  taken  up  in  reverse  order. 


52 

The  third  and  the  second  were  found  to  furnish  no  new  kind  of 

•^ 

sameness,  and  to  be  on  a  par  with  the  corresponding  senses  of 
the  word  "not-self,"  except  as  touching  the  sixth  kind  of  same- 
ness. As  respects  this,  it  was  admitted  that  no  one  would  speak 
'of  two  men  as  perceiving  the  same  self,  whether  as  bundle  of 
"  real"  qualities  or  as  noumenon.  It  was  remarked,  however, 
that  this  is  due  not  to  a  difference  in  the  self  and  not-self  in 
themselves  considered,  but  to  a  difference  in  their  relation  to 
other  things  in  a  consciousness. 

The  self  in  consciousness,  or  as  immediately  known,  was  then 
discussed.  It  was  stated  that  we  may  safely  assume  this  to  be 
either  a  part  or  the  whole  of  consciousness,  or  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  in  some  peculiar  aspect  or  relation.  Self,  viewed 
as  a  part  of  consciousness,  was  found  to  furnish  no  new  kind  of 
sameness,  and  was  found  to  admit  of  all  the  kinds  discovered 
except  the  sixth  ;  this  one  being  inadmissible  from  the  fact  that 
when  we  make  the  self  a  part  of  consciousness  we  always  make 
it  the  subjective  part  and  not  the  objective.  Self,  viewed  as  the 
whole  of  consciousness,  was  likewise  found  to  furnish  no  new 
kind  of  sameness,  and  it  was  found  to  admit  of  all  the  seven 
kinds  discovered — even  of  the  sixth,  though  in  a  modified  way, 
since  this  kind  can  belong  only  to  a  part  of  the  self,  the  objec- 
tive part,  which  is  in  some  sense  common  and  impersonal.  It 
may,  to  be  sure,  be  objected  that  it  would  be  contrary  to  common 
usage  to  speak  of  two  men  as  seeing  the  same  self  in  any  sense 
of  that  word  ;  but  in  making  the  self  the  whole  of  conscious- 
ness one  has  already  abandoned  the  common  standpoint,  and  one 
may  as  well  be  consistent  in  carrying  out  the  consequences. 
Assuming  the  self  to  be  not  a  part  or  the  whole  of  conscious- 
ness simply,  but  regarded  in  some  peculiar  aspect  or  relation, 
was  not  found  to  be  significant  as  concerns  kinds  of  same- 
ness. 


53 

It  still  remained  to  consider  a  possible  position ;  that  of  the 
man  who  distinguishes  between  the  formal  and  the  material 
element  in  consciousness,  and  identifies  self  or  mind  with  the 
former.  The  formal  element  of  consciousness  is  not  a  part  of 
consciousness  as  the  word  part  is  commonly  used,  nor  is  it  the 
whole  of  consciousness,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  word 
whole.  And  though  this  view  might  very  well  have  been  brought 
under  a  former  head  by  stretching  a  little  the  meaning  of  the 
word  part,  yet  such  is  its  importance  that  I  chose  rather  to  omit 
it  when  discussing  self  as  a  part  of  consciousness  (there  using 
the  word  part  in  a  limited  sense),  and  to  take  it  up  later  by 
itself. 

It  was  insisted  that  if  the  formal  element  in  consciousness  is 
enough  of  a  thing  to  be  distinguished  from  something  else,  and 
to  be  discussed,  it  is  enough  of  a  thing  to  admit  of  distinctions 
and  differences  much  as  other  things  do.  After  examination  it 
appeared,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
believer  in  "  form"  should  not  attribute  to  it  all  of  the  seven 
kinds  of  sameness  before  described — even  (in  the  modified  way 
described  a  moment  ago)  the  sixth  kind.  And  it  also  appeared 
that  no  new  kind  of  sameness  is  discoverable  in  this  field. 
With  this  closed  the  search  for  samenesses. 

It  will  be  observed  that  we  have  passed  in  review  the  self  and 
the  not-self  as  immediately  known,  the  self  and  the  not-self  as 
bundles  of  "  real"  qualities  out  of  consciousness,  and  the  self 
and  the  not-self  as  noumenon  or  substance.  I  know  of  no  other 
field  in  which  the  search  may  be  prosecuted,  unless  such  be 
invented  gratuitously  by  increasing  the  "layers"  of  being  in  a 
way  no  one  seems  inclined  to  increase  them.  And  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  samenesses  found  in  any  "  layer"  below  the 
first  seem  to  be  only  repetitions  of  what  we  find  in  that  one,  we 
could  have  no  reason  to  hope  that  any  such  needless  increase  in 


54 

strata  could  add  a  single  new  kind  of  sameness  to  those 
described. 

SEC.  19.  Now  that  we  have  obtained  a  list  of  the  different 
kinds  of  sameness,  we  may  pass  our  eye  over  it  with  a  view  to 
discovering  what  the  various  kinds  have  in  common,  and  what  is 
the  reason  that  we  express  such  diverse  experiences  by  the  use 
of  the  one  word.  Such  an  examination  reveals  the  fact  that  the 
common  notion  which  unites  them  is  the  idea  of  similarity.  In 
some  cases  this  notion  lies  more  in  the  foreground  than  in 
others,  but  in  all  cases  it  is  present,  and  forms  the  bond  of 
union.  I  will  run  through  the  list  and  point  this  out,  beginning, 
however,  with  the  second  kind,  and  reserving  the  first  for  discus- 
sion after  the  others. 

II.  A  mere  mention  of  the  second  kind  of  sameness  is,  in 
this  connection,  sufficient.  Two  mental  experiences  are  there 
avowedly  called  the  same  to  mark  similarity. 

III.  When  we  speak  of  the  same  object  as  perceived  on  two 
occasions,  we  do  not,  as  has  been  noticed,  mean  that  what  is 
actually   in  the   sense  at   the  two   different   times   is  similar. 
Nevertheless,  we  find  here,  too,  the  notion  of  similarity,  for  the 
two  experiences  are  not  considered  merely  in  themselves,  but  as 
elements  in  a  group  or  series,  and  as  each  representing  the 
whole  series.     When,  therefore,  we  have  the  two  experiences, 
we  regard  ourselves  as  having  in  them  two  experiences  of  the 
one  series  ;  which  means,  to  be  more  explicit,  that  we  have  in 
mind  on  the  two  occasions  two  complexes  which  are  similar,  and 
which,  when  thought  of  together,  are  related  to  each  other  as 
the  memory  image  and  its  original  are  related.      Here  the  like- 
ness lies  in  what  is  represented,  not  in  the  representatives. 

IV.  As  in  the  second  kind  of  sameness,  so  in  the  fourth,  the 
reference  to  similarity  is  unmistakable.     We  call  qualities  or 
things  the  same  when  they  are  of  the  one  kind,  when  they  are 
observed  to  resemble  each  other. 


55 

V.  The  relation  of  representative  and  thing  represented  evi- 
dently implies  the  notion  of  similarity.      It  is  quite  true  that  we 
often  recognize  as  in  this  relation  things  that  we  do  not  think  of 
as  being  similar  at  all,  and  yet  a  little  reflection  will  show  that 
one  thing  can  stand  for  another  only  in  so  far  as  it  resembles  it. 
The  resemblance  may  lie  in  the  qualities  of  the  things  in  them- 
selves considered,  or  it  may  lie  in  external  relations  of  which  the 
things  are  capable,  or  functions  which  they  may  serve.     The  very 
notion  of  a  proxy  is  a  something  which,  for  the  purpose  in  hand, 
may  be  regarded  as  capable  of  assuming  the  functions  of  another. 
In  so  far  as  it  can  do  this  it  is  like  the  other.      Things  wholly 
different  (if  things  could  be  wholly  different)  could  not  repre- 
sent each  other. 

VI.  When  a  man  thinks  of  two  other  men  as  perceiving  the 
same  object,  he  must  recognize,  if  he   reflect,  that  he  has  in 
mind  a  picture  of  the  object,  of  two  human  bodies  in  a  peculiar 
relation  to  it,  and  two  images  of  the  object  somehow  connected 
with  these  bodies.     He  need  not  think  of  these  images  as  wholly 
resembling  his  picture  of  the  object  or  each  other.     He  does, 
indeed,  make  them  more  or  less  like  his  picture  of  the  object,  but 
what  is  prominent  in  his  mind  is  the  thought  of  them  as  repre- 
sentatives, as  related  to  and  giving  information  concerning  the 
object.     I   say  concerning  the  object,  but  this  phrase  is  am-' 
biguous.     If  the  man  under  discussion  believes  in  "real"  ob- 
jects in  an  extra-consciousness  world,  he  will  look  upon  the 
images  as  representing  such  a  "real"  object;  though,  of  course, 
his  guarantee  for  this  "real"  object,  and  all  his  information  con- 
cerning, it  must  be  found  in  his  picture  of  the  object,  and  this, 
or  its  copy,  will  stand  for  the  "real"  object  in  any  mental  com- 
plex he  may  construct.     If  the  man  be  an  Idealist,  accepting  only 
what  can  be  found  in  a  consciousnesss,  he  will  look  upon  the  two 
images  as  related  to  his  picture  of  the  object  and  representative 


56 

of  that.  In  any  case  he  must  regard  them  as  representatives,  and 
in  this  sense  the  same  with  the  thing  they  represent.  The  no- 
tion of  similarity  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  idea  of  represen- 
tative and  thing  represented  is  then  implied  in  sameness  of  the 
sixth  kind  also. 

VII.  And  since  those  who  distinguish  between  the  immediate 
and  the  mediate  objects  of  knowledge  make  the  former  represen- 
tative of  the  latter,  we  have  evidently  this  implied  notion  of 
similarity  in  the  seventh  kind  of  sameness  as  well  as  in  the 
sixth.  The  mediate  object  is  said  to  be  known  through  the 
immediate :  that  is,  the  qualities  and  relations  of  the  one  are 
made  to  stand  for  and  serve  in  place  of  the  qualities  and  rela- 
tions of  the  other.  This  they  can  do,  of  course,  only  in  so  far  as 
the  two  sets  of  qualities  and  relations  are  similar.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  see  that  this  notion  of  similarity  is  present  when  we 
think  of  an  idea  or  complex  of  ideas  as  representing  a  "real" 
thing  beyond  consciousness,  and  giving  information  concerning 
it.  When,  however,  we  sublimate  our  "real"  thing  into  a  nou- 
menon  and  strip  it  of  the  determinations  which,  taken  together, 
make  up  our  idea  of  a  thing,  we  destroy,  if  we  are  consistent 
and  thorough-going,  all  notion  of  similarity  between  the  two ; 
but  in  doing  this  we  destroy  our  noumenon  altogether.  If,  for 
instance,  we  refuse  to  allow  to  our  notion  of  a  thing  "any  quali- 
tative or  quantitative  expression  whatever,"  we  cannot  think  of 
the  thing  as  having  reality  or  existence,  or  any  mark  by  which  it 
is  to  be  distinguished  from  nothing  at  all.  In  this  case  the  idea 
is  no  longer  representative,  for  it  has  nothing  to  represent.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  wholly  destroy  the  noumenon,  but 
still  allow  it  a  diluted  existence  of  an  indefinite  kind,  in  so  far  as 
it  has  this,  and  can  be  represented  in  mind  at  all,  it  resembles 
the  idea,  and  just  so  far  may  the  idea  stand  as  its  representa- 
tive. 


57 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  several  of  those  who  pin  their 
faith  to  "external"  realities  seem  to  apprehend  at  times  but 
dimly,  if  at  all,  that  the  relation  of  phenomenon  and  noumenon, 
or  of  idea  and  "real"  thing,  is  that  of  representative  and  thing 
represented,  and  that  we  have  here  two  things  and  not  one. 
Certainly  they  sometimes  pass  from  one  to  the  other  without 
rhyme  or  reason,  and  apparently  in  complete  unconsciousness  of 
the  fact  that  they  have  made  any  change  at  all.  If,  for  the  time 
being,  they  really  take  the  two  for  one,  they  are  not  thinking  of 
the  seventh  kind  of  sameness,  but  of  another  kind.  As  this  is 
done  through  mere  inadvertence  and  looseness  of  reasoning,  and 
cannot  be  justified  on  their  own  assumptions,  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  dwell  upon  it  farther.  Where  one  really  has  in  mind 
the  seventh  kind  of  sameness,  the  elements  I  have  mentioned 
will  be  found  in  it. 

I.  Finally,  we  come  to  the  perplexing  case  that  I  postponed  at 
the  outset.  What  has  sameness  of  the  first  kind  in  common  with 
the  rest  ?  How  can  we  speak  of  similarity  when  strictly  one 
thing  is  in  question  ?  Not  one  thing  in  the  loose  sense  in  which 
we  call  a  material  object  one  thing  in  its  successive  states,  nor 
one  in  the  sense  in  which  the  memory  image  and  its  original  are 
one,  but  one  thing  as  a  single  element  of  knowledge  is  itself  at 
any  one  instant  ?  How  can  the  idea  of  likeness  hold  here  ?  Dun- 
dreary's bird  flocking  all  by  itself  would  seem  to  have  found  its 
philosophical  prototype. 

It  may  be  said  that  though  the  thing  in  question  is  strictly 
one,  yet  we  divide  it  from  itself  in  thought  and  then  affirm  it  of 
itself.  We  give  expression  to  the  logical  law  of  identity  by 
saying  that  x  is  x.  But  here  the  difficulty  meets  us  that,  if  we 
are  really  talking  about  only  the  one  x,  we  have  said  quite  all  we 
have  to  say  in  merely  saying  x ;  while  if,  to  complete  our  thought, 
we  must  add  the  second  x,  we  have  not  an  identical  proposition, 


58 

in  any  strict  sense  of  the  word,  but  a  synthetic  one.  It  is  easy 
enough  in  words  to  divide  a  "thing"  from  "itself/'  since  the 
words  "thing"  and  "itself"  are  two,  and  may  readily  be  distin- 
guished. In  the  same  way  it  is  easy  in  words  to  affirm  a  thing 
to  be  and  not  to  be  at  the  one  time.  There  is  no  law  to  prevent 
one's  stringing  sounds  together  as  he  may  please.  But  if  one  is 
interested  not  in  the  mere  symbols,  but  in  that  which  they  are 
supposed  to  represent,  one  must  see  that  the  expression  "x  is  x," 
to  be  a  significant  proposition,  must  have  a  subject  and  a  predi- 
cate, and  affirm  a  relation  between  them.  Here  we  have,  by 
hypothesis,  strictly  one  thing  for  subject  and  predicate.  The 
proposition  "x  is  x"  must  then  consist  of  one  thing  and  a  relation 
between  it — which  is  about  as  significant  as  the  statement  that 
a  door  may  consist  of  one  side  and  a  relation  between  it.  Be- 
tween what?  One  side.1  Every  form  of  proposition  employed 
to  give  expression  to  the  law  of  identity  implies  this  difficulty. 
Whether  we  say  "x  is  x,"  or  "whatever  is  is,"  or  "  every  thing  is 
identical  with  itself,"  our  proposition,  taken  literally,  is  either 
useless  (since  we  have  said  all  we  have  to  say  in  mentioning  the 
subject  alone),  or  untrue  (since  we  add  a  new  element  in  adding 
the  predicate). 

1  This  abnormal  door  has  its  parallel  in  the  now  discredited  causa  sui.  Note  the  fol- 
lowing from  Descartes :  "  De  mgme,  lorsque  nous  disons  que  Dieu  est  par  soi,  nous  pouvons 
aussi  a  la  v£rit£  entendre  cela  n6gativement,  comme  voulant  dire  qu'il  n'a  point  de  cause; 
mais  si  nous  avons  auparavant  recherch<§  la  cause  pourquoi  il  est  ou  pourquoi  il  ne  cesse 
point  d'etre,  et  que,  consid£rant  1'  immense  et  incomprehensible  puissance  qui  est  contenue 
dans  son  id£e,  nous  1'ayons  reconnue  si  pleine  et  si  abondante  qu'  en  effet  elle  soit  la  vraie  cause 
pourquoi  il  est,  et  pourquoi  il  continue  ainsi  toujours  d'etre,  et  qu'  il  n'y  en  puisse  avoir  d'autre 
que  celle-la,  nous  disons  que  Dieu  est  par  soi,  non  plus  negativement,  mais  au  contraire  tres- 
positivement.  Car,  encore  qu'il  n'est  pas  besoin  de  dire  qu'il  est  la  cause  efficiente  de  soi- 
m€me,  de  peur  que  peut-6tre  on  n'entre  en  dispute  du  mot ;  neanmoins,  parce  que  vous  voyons 
que  ce  qui  fait  qu'il  est  par  soi,  ou  qu'il  |n'a  point  de  cause  diff£rente  de  soi-m^me,  ne  procede 
pas  du  n€ant,  mais  de  la  r£elle  et  veritable  immensity  de  sa  puissance,  il  nous  est  tout  a  fait 
loisible  de  penser  qu'il  fait  en  quelque  fa?on  la  m^me  chose  a  P£gard  de  soi-m£me  que  la  cause 
efficiente  &  1'egard  de  son  effet,  et  partant  qu'il  est  par  soi  positivement." — R£ponses  aux 
Premieres  Objections. 


59 

It  is  then  sufficiently  evident  that  the  forms  used  to  express 
the  logical  law  of  identity  do  not,  taken  strictly,  express  at  all 
the  kind  of  sameness  with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  something  very  different.  We  are  considering  a 
sameness  in  which  there  is  no  duality  whatever,  but  our  expres- 
sions would  seem  to  have  no  meaning  except  as  indicating  a  rela- 
tion between  two.  They  are  then  significant,  not  as  expressing 
sameness  of  the  first  kind,  but  as  suggesting  it,  and  this  they  cer- 
tainly serve  to  do.  The  reason  for  this  I  shall  try  to  give  in  a 

i 
moment. 

It  has  been  said  that  in  the  other  kinds  of  sameness  we  always 
find  the  notion  of  similarity.  When,  however,  we  distinguish 
two  things  as  two  and  yet  recognize  them  as  similar,  we  must 
have  what  I  may  call  a  mixed  experience  of  likeness  and  unlike- 
ness.  In  any  two  things  compared,  the  degrees  of  likeness  and 
unlikeness  may  vary,  and  we  may  fix  attention  upon  similarities 
or  differences.  In  proportion  to  the  attention  given  to  dissim- 
ilar elements  will  the  two  objects  be  clearly  distinguished  from 
each  other  and  discriminated  as  two.  If  the  purpoke  in  hand 
does  not  require  a  careful  attention  to  differences,  and  if  what  is 
prominent  in  mind  is  the  likeness  of  the  two  objects,  the  sense 
of  duality  may  fall  into  the  background,  and  the  man  pass  readily 
from  one  object  to  the  other  with  little  consciousness  that  he  has 
made  a  change.  As  I  now  look  at  the  two  ink-stands  on  my 
desk,  I  clearly  recognize  them  as  two  and  yet  as  of  the  one  kind. 
Here  I  am  as  distinctly  aware  that  they  are  two  as  I  am  that 
they  are  in  some  respects  the  same.  But  in  some  of  the  kinds 
of  sameness  I  have  described  this  sense  of  duality  falls  more  into 
the  shade.  When  I  speak  of  seeing  the  same  ink-stand  twice, 
or  when  I  call  up  in  memory  an  ink-stand  once  seen,  I  am  likely, 
unless  I  take  particular  pains  to  reflect  upon  my  mental  opera- 
tion, to  have  but  a  dim  realization  of  the  fact  that  I  have  two 


6o 

distinct  things  to  deal  with.  How  those  who  distinguish 
between  the  immediate  and  the  mediate  objects  of  knowledge 
have  a  tendency  to  forget  their  distinction,  and  to  pass 
unconsciously  from  one  to  the  other,  I  have  dwelt  upon 
sufficiently. 

Suppose,  now,  that  from  two  objects  which  we  recognize  as 
similar  and  yet  distinct,  we  abstract  one  by  one  the  elements 
which  differ.  So  long  as  there  is  any  difference  left,  we  still 
have  "  identity  in  diversity" — similarity  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
the  term,  which  implies  a  recognition  of  two  things  as  two. 
When,  however,  the  last  difference  disappears,  all  sense  of 
duality  must  disappear  with  it,  for  any  division  or  distinction 
within  what  remains  is  inadmissible.  Things  which  are  distin- 
guished are  distinguished  through  some  difference.  A  sense  of 
duality  implies  a  discrimination  between  two,  and  where  it  is 
impossible  to  discriminate  duality  vanishes.  Similarity,  as  we 
commonly  use  the  word,  must  then  disappear  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  all  dissimilarity  between  two  objects.  I  say  "between 
two  objects"  in  default  of  a  better  expression,  for,  of  course,  we 
have  at  this  point  no  longer  two  objects.  My  meaning  is,  how- 
ever, sufficiently  plain.  A  sense  of  duality  implies  difference* 
and  similarity,  as  commonly  understood,  implies  duality.  The 
similarity  will  then  take  itself  off  with  the  last  difference. 

It  may  be  objected  that  a  consciousness  of  duality  and  a  con- 
sciousness of  similarity  are  only  possible  on  the  ground  that  I 
mention,  but  that  duality  and  similarity  themselves  may  really 
obtain  when  no  difference  between  two  is  perceptible.  But  a 
moment's  reflection  will  make  it  plain  that  one  who  speaks  thus 
is  simply  supplying  in  himself  the  elements  that  he  is  supposing 
absent  in  the  case  of  another.  If  he  uses  the  words  "duality" 
and  "  similarity,"  and  they  really  mean  anything  to  him,  they 
imply  all  that  I  have  said.  He  cannot  represent  to  himself  two 


6i 

things  at  all  without  distinguishing  them  from  each  other,  and 
he  can  not  distinguish  them  from  each  other  unless  they  differ 
in  some  way.  If,  then,  he  speak  of  two  things  as  being  two  and 
yet  completely  indistinguishable,  he  is,  taken  literally,  talking 
nonsense.  He  may,  of  course,  mean  the  misleading  phrase  to 
be  understood  as  indicating  something  not  actually  expressed  by 
the  words.  He  may  mean  to  point  out  that,  under  certain 
circumstances,  in  which  he  has  an  experience  which  he  calls 
a  recognition  of  two  objects  as  two  and  as  similar,  he  has  reason 
to  think  another  mind  has  an  experience  partly  like  and  partly 
unlike  his  own — like  in  as  much  as  it  contains  what  corresponds 
to  that  which  is  common  to  the  two  objects  he  has  in  mind  ; 
unlike  in  as  much  as  it  contains  nothing  which  corresponds  to 
the  elements  which  make  it  possible  for  him  to  recognize  two 
objects.  It  is  this  that  is  in  his  mind  when  he  speaks  of  think- 
ing of  two  objects  as  really  two  and  yet  indistinguishable  to  this 
man  or  that.  If,  however,  the  expression  "  two  things  may  be 
indistinguishable"  is  used  to  indicate  this  experience,  it  should 
be  carefully  borne  in  mind  that  the  proposition  must  not  be  taken 
literally,  for  the  good  reason  that  the  subject  and  predicate  are 
not  in  the  one  consciousness.  The  "two  objects"  are  in  the 
mind  of  Smith,  and  the  "  indistinguishable"  element  in  the 
mind  of  Jones.  When  we  speak  of  two  men  as  seeing  the  same 
thing,  I  have  shown  that  we  are  using  the  word  same  in  a  looser 
sense  which  should  never  be  confounded  with  the  stricter  sense. 
Strictly  speaking,  then,  the  "  two  things"  are  never  indistin- 
guishable, but  that  which  corresponds  to  the  two  things  in  a 
consciousness  from  which  all  recognition  of  duality  is  absent. 
That  one  man  may  have  a  consciousness  of  duality  while 
another  man  has  not,  and  that  these  two  experiences  may  be 
related  as  the  experiences  of  different  minds  are  related  when 
we  say  they  are  experiencing  the  same  thing,  no  one  would  care 


62 

to  dispute.  Should  a  man  say  that  he  can  think  of  himself  as 
unable  to  distinguish  two  things  which  are  nevertheless  two,  the 
case  would  not  be  materially  different.  The  man  cannot,  of 
course,  think  of  the  two  things  as  indistinguishable,  but  he  may 
think  of  two  things  and  connect  with  this  thought  the  thought 
of  himself  as  having  an  experience  in  which  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  duality. 

But,  it  may  be  insisted,  we  are  still  only  talking  about 
consciousness ;  let  us  come  to  "  real"  things.  Suppose  no  one 
able  to  distinguish  between  them,  abstract  all  consciousness  of 
difference,  would  not  two  "  real"  things  remain  two,  however 
we  might  confound  them  ?  Can  a  thing  in  one  place  be  a  thing 
in  another  place,  however  closely  it  may  resemble  it,  or  however 
ignorant  we  may  be  ? 

To  this  I  answer  that  when  one  speaks  of  two  "real"  things 
the  words  only  mean  something  to  him  because  he  has  present 
in  mind  what  I  have  said  must  be  present  if  one  is  to  have  a 
consciousness  of  duality.  A  "  thing  in  one  place"  and  a  "thing 
in  another  place"  are  to  him  two  simply  because  he  thinks  them 
as  differing — in  place.  When  one  has  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  must  duplicate  his  experience,  distinguish  between  the 
world  of  immediate  and  the  world  of  mediate  objects,  and  place 
the  latter  in  a  region  "outside,"  there  is  nothing  to  prevent 
him  from  thinking  of  two  "real"  things  as  two,  although  all 
distinctions  within  the  field  of  immediate  objects  have  been 
obliterated.  Still,  in  thinking  these  "  real"  things  as  two,  he 
does  just  what  he  does  in  thinking  two  immediate  objects  as 
two — he  recognizes  difference.  The  twoness  depends  upon  dif- 
ference as  much  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  and  to  speak  of 
two  objects  in  a  "  real"  world  as  two  and  yet  having  no  differing 
element  would  be  to  use  words  without  meaning.  In  talking 
about  a  "real"  world,  if  we  are  really  to  talk  and  not  merely  to 


63 

utter  a  series  of  sounds,  our  words  must  be  significant.  To  say 
"this  or  that  may  be  in  a  'real'  world,  though  we  may  not  be 
able  to  conceive  it,"  would,  if  "this"  or  "that"  implies  a  con- 
tradiction, be  to  say  nothing.  The  fact  is  that  this  "external" 
world,  as  we  think  it,  implies  the  notions  of  before  and  after,  in 
this  place  and  that,  all  the  distinctions  and  differences  which 
make  it  to  us  a  world  of  distinct  objects.  Of  course  it  follows 
that  things  in  the  "external"  world  are  thought  as  distinct  from 
each  other,  but  this  does  not  affect  my  statement  that  distinction 
is  impossible  without  difference. 

We  may,  then,  have  a  series  of  experiences,  beginning  with 
one  in  which  two  objects  are  recognized  as  similar  and  yet  are 
very  clearly  distinguished  as  two  objects,  continued  in  others 
in  which  the  sense  of  duality  falls  more  and  more  into  the  back- 
ground, and  ending  in  one  in  which  there  is  no  consciousness 
of  duality  at  all.  The  last  of  these  experiences  is  not  wholly 
different  from  the  others.  There  is  in  it  no  experience  of  simi- 
larity in  so  far  as  this  word  is  used  to  express  identity  in  dif- 
ference, or  a  relation  between  two.  There  can  be  no  such  rela- 
tion unless  there  are  two,  and  here  there  are  not  two.  But  it 
should  be  marked  that  this  experience  differs  from  the  others, 
not  in  the  element  which  has  led  us  to  declare  two  objects  sim- 
ilar— the  element  which  they  have  in  common — but  in  that  which 
has  led  us  to  declare  them  two  and  different.  It  is  by  adding  to 
this  last  experience,  so  to  speak,  that  we  get  the  others.  They 
contain  it  and  more.  Usage  will  not  allow  us  to  apply  the  term 
similarity  in  speaking  of  an  experience  in  which  two  things  are 
not  distinguished,  and  this  is  proper  enough  ;  but  it  should  never 
be  forgotten  that  this  experience  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  our 
experiences  of  similarity — is,  so  to  speak,  their  common  core. 
When,  therefore,  I  said  some  pages  back  that  all  the  kinds  of 
sameness  under  discussion  contain  the  idea  of  similarity,  I  was 


64 

using  the  word  in  a  certain  broad  sense  to  indicate  that  which  is 
the  ground  of  all  our  experiences  of  similarity,  and  is  also  found 
in  the  first  kind  of  sameness  on  the  list.  I  preferred  to  use 
there  the  word  similarity,  because  it  was  easy  to  show  that  this 
notion  is  really  contained  in  six  of  the  seven  uses  of  the  word 
same,  and  it  was  convenient  afterward  to  show  the  connection 
between  the  first  kind  of  sameness  and  the  notion  of  similarity. 

And  now  it  is  not  difficult  to  guess  why  we  employ  such  expres- 
sions as  we  do  to  indicate  strict  identity.  If  I  habitually  use  the 
proposition  "x  is  y"  to  indicate  a  relation  between  two  things 
having  similar  elements  and  yet  regarded  as  distinct,  and  look 
upon  the  proposition  as  justified  by  the  similar  elements,  observ- 
ing that,  these  remaining  unchanged,  the  dissimilar  elements 
may  be  very  variable  without  affecting  the  truth  of  the  proposi- 
tion, what  more  natural  than  that  I  should  go  on  using  the  prepo- 
sitional form  when  the  dissimilar  elements  have  diminished  to 
zero — when  the  proposition  has  become  "x  is  x"?  To  be  sure, 
no  one  can  take  such  a  proposition  literally,  any  more  than  one 
can  soberly  believe  that  one  divided  by  zero  results  in  infinity. 
Such  expressions  have  their  use  and  value,  but  they  must  be 
properly  understood.  If  one  uses  the  expression  "xisx"  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  one  is  not  to  pass  from  x  to  any  y  or  z— 
that  one  is  to  rule  out  all  distinction  or  sense  of  difference,  the  use 
cannot  be  harmful.  And  the  use  of  the  prepositional  form  has 
this  great  convenience :  it  puts  a  period,  so  to  speak,  to  one's 
thinking,  and  prevents  one  from  casting  about  for  a  completion 
of  the  thought.  If  one  merely  say  to  me  "x,"  I  shall  probably 
take  it  as  a  subject  and  busy  myself  to  find  a  predicate.  If  he 
say  "x  is  x,"  he  says  really  no  more  than  x,  but  he  makes  me 
fix  my  thoughts  upon  x  alone. 

SEC.  20.  In  the  foregoing  search  for  the  element  that  the  kinds 
of  sameness  have  in  common,  I  have  had  in  mind  chiefly  the 


65 

samenesses  of  things  immediately  known.  It  is  nqt  necessary 
to  repeat  the  search  in  the  field  of  the  "external."  We  have  but 
the  seven  kinds  of  sameness,  and  whatever  may  be  the  things  that 
are  the  same  in  these  several  ways,  the  elements  I  have  indi- 
cated must  be  present  if  our  words  are  to  be  significant.  But 
one  thing  remains  for  me  to  do  in  this  part  of  my  monograph, 
and  that  will  not  detain  me  long.  I  must  distinguish  between 
sameness  and  identity,  or  rather  point  out  to  what  kinds  of 
sameness  this  latter  word  is  commonly  applied. 

The  word  is  often  used  quite  loosely,  but  where  the  attempt 
is  made  to  distinguish  between  identity  and  sameness  in  a  looser 
sense,  and  to  use  terms  with  some  precision,  the  former  word 
serves  to  indicate  sameness  in  which  there  is  no  consciousness 
of  duality,  or  in  which  the  consciousness  of  duality  has  fallen  into 
the  background  and  may  easily  be  overlooked.  Sameness  of  the 
first  kind,  for  example,  is  spoken  of  as  identity.  This  is  the  only 
kind  of  sameness  in  which  there  is  no  element  of  duality  at  all. 
The  use  of  the  word  identity  is  not,  however,  restricted  to  this. 
Locke's  inquiry  concerning  the  identity  of  masses  of  inorganic 
matter,  of  vegetables,  of  animals,  and  of  persons,  has  to  do  with 
sameness  of  the  third  kind  on  the  list.  In  this  kind  of  sameness 
there  is  no  clear  consciousness  that  one  is  dealing  with  more 
than  one  thing,  and  Locke's  discussion  is  conducted  throughout 
as  though  one  were  not. 

It  may  be  objected  that  in  certain  other  kinds  there  is  often  no 
clear  consciousness  of  duality,  and  yet  one  does  not  think  of 
using  the  term  identity.  This  is  quite  true.  The  two  kinds 
mentioned  have  been  thought  worthy  of  special  discussion  by 
logician  and  philosopher,  and  have  been  given  a  technical  name. 
The  others  have  not.  Still,  although  the  word  is  not  commonly 
used  in  such  cases,  it  would,  I  fancy,  seem  natural  to  use  it  in  a 
direct  ratio  to  the  degree  in  which  the  sense  of  duality  falls  into 


66 

the  background.  Dr.  Johnson  would  probably  have  been  willing 
to  say  that  the  stone  he  saw  himself  kick  was  identical  with  the 
one  the  existence  of  which  he  wanted  to  prove.  Bishop  Berkeley 
could  have  felt  only  disgust  at  such  a  use  of  the  term.  Scarcely 
anyone,  I  suppose,  would  regard  himself  as  speaking  strictly  if 
he  called  the  fourth  kind  of  sameness  identity.  The  co-existence 
of  the  two  things  compared  would  prevent  their  being  con- 
founded. Without,  then,  attempting  to  assign  any  very  exact 
limits  to  the  application  of  a  somewhat  loosely  used  word,  I  may 
repeat  my  former  statement  that  men  use  the  word  identity  to 
mark  certain  kinds  of  sameness  in  which  there  is  little  or  no 
consciousness  of  duality,  and  they  are  not  inclined  to  use  it  to 
mark  samenesses  in  which  things  are  recognized  as  similar  but 
clearly  distinct. 

With  this  I  end  the  first  part  of  my  discussion,  and  I  confess 
I  draw  a  long  breath  in  doing  so.  When  I  sat  down  to  write  it 
was  with  the  impression  that  I  could  say  all  that  was  necessary 
about  the  kinds  of  sameness  in  a  much  smaller  number  of  pages; 
but  finding  it  impossible  to  avoid  misunderstandings  without 
being  more  explicit  and  detailed,  I  have  had  to  change  my  plan. 
Now,  that  I  am  through,  I  must  confess  to  myself  that  most 
persons  will  find  this  hair-splitting  anything  but  entertaining— 
which  would  be  held  by  the  inconsiderate  to  furnish  a  presump- 
tion against  the  truth  it  contains,  if  ancient  adages  go  for  any- 
thing. It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  old  saw 
which  puts  truth  in  a  well  does  not  indicate  that  the  well  may 
not  be  a  dry  one.  With  this  consolatory  reflection  I  turn  to  the 
second  part  of  my  task. 


PART  II. 

HISTORICAL  AND  CRITICAL. 

Those  now  who  propose  to  hold  mutual  discussion  must  needsl  understand  one  another 
somewhat :  for  without  this  how  can  they  have  any  mutual  discussion  ?  Each  of  their  words 
then,  must  be  familiar  and  have  definite  meaning,  and  not  many  meanings,  but  one  only, 
and  if  it  have  more  meanings  than  one,  they  must  make  it  clear  in  which  of  these  senses  it  is 

used. 

Aristotle,  Metaph.,  Book  X,  c.  5,  §3. 

SECTION  21.  When  Heraclitus  of  Ephesus,  moved  thereto  by 
his  view  of  the  constant  flux  of  things,  declared  it  impossible  to 
enter  the  same  river  twice,1  he  evidently  supposed  that  a  river 
can  be  the  same  only  in  the  first  and  strictest  sense  of  the  word. 
He  denied,  consequently,  a  right  to  use  the  word,  as  it  con- 
stantly is  used,  to  indicate  that  certain  phenomena  belong  to  a 
group  or  series,  which,  in  its  totality,  is  to  us  a  single  object. 
When  we  say  that  we  have  entered  the  same  river  twice  we  have 
no  reference  to  the  actual  experiences  of  the  two  occasions 
considered  merely  as  experiences.  Of  course,  these  are  not 
the  same,  as  each  is  itself,  and  they  may  even  be  somewhat  dis- 
similar. Nor  have  we  reference  to  the  separate  particles  of 
which  the  body  of  water  is  composed.  We  all  admit  that  the  water 
in  a  river  changes,  and  yet  we  never  think  of  saying  that  the 
river  is  no  longer  the  same.  The  two  kinds  of  sameness  are 
quite  distinct,  yet  both  are  legitimate ;  and  both  were  as  familiar 
to  the  ancient  Greek  as  to  the  modern  American.  Socrates  was 
considered  Socrates  from  boyhood  through  youth  to  manhood. 
The  Ilissus  was  the  Ilissus  whether  swollen  or  shrunken. 
The  philosopher's  difficulty  with  the  river  did  not  arise  out  of 

Aristotle,  Metaph.,  Bk.  Ill,  c.  5,  §  7. 


68 

the  fact  that  this  kind  of  sameness  was  not  perfectly  well  recog- 
nized in  language  and  in  common  thought.  It  arose  out  of  the 
fact  that  the  beginnings  of  reflection  make  many  things  seem 
strange  which  before  passed  unnoticed,  and  sometimes  lead  to 
assertion  and  denial  evidently  contrary  to  experience  and  com- 
mon sense.  The  unreflective  man  calls  the  river  the  same  on 
two  successive  days,  but  he  has  no  clear  notion  of  what  the  word 
implies.  In  a  loose  way  he  opposes  "same"  to  "different." 
Heraclitus  saw  that  the  water  in  a  river  is  constantly  changing. 
He  who  enters  twice  does  not  enter  precisely  the  same  body  of 
water.  What  more  natural,  and  what  more  fallacious,  than  to 
assert  that  he  does  not  twice  enter  the  same  river  ? 

SEC.  22.  And  well  might  Cratylus  hold  his  peace  and  move 
his  finger1  when  he  had  capped  the  climax  with  the  statement 
that  the  same  river  could  not  be  entered  once.  Heraclitus  had 
merely  denied  sameness  of  the  third  kind  to  be  sameness,  since 
it  implies  duality.  Cratylus,  surprised  by  a  discovery  of  duality 
where  he  had  not  before  suspected  it,  will  not  allow  the  term 
where  there  is  no  duality  whatever.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  he  came  at  last  to  be  "of  opinion  that  one  ought  to  speak  of 
nothing."  Upon  such  a  basis  speech  loses  its  significance. 

SEC.  23.  The  Parmenidean  argument  for  the  eternity  of  Being2 
rests  partly  upon  a  confusion  of  the  first  kind  of  sameness  with 
the  fourth.  Being  has  had  no  origin,  for  from  what  could  it 
have  been  derived  ?  Not  from  the  non-existent,  for  this  has  no 
existence :  and  not  from  the  existent,  for  it  is  itself  the  existent. 
The  quibble  about  the  non-existent  we  need  not  consider,  though 
it  is  seriously  repeated  by  more  than  one  writer  of  our  time. 
The  last  part  of  the  argument,  "not  from  the  existent,  for  it  is 
itself  the  existent,"  draws  its  whole  force  from  the  assumption 

1  Aristotle,  Metaph.  Ill,  c.  5,  §  7. 

2Ueberweg.    Hist,  of  Philos.,  Vol.  I,  §  19.  N.  Y.,  1877,  P-  57- 


69 

that  "it"  is  "the  existent"  as  a  thing  is  itself,  or  in  the  first 
sense  of  the  word  same.  But  if  this  be  the  case,  the  argument 
is  a  mere  farce,  an  argument  only  in  words.  The  phrase,  "  de- 
rived from  the  existent,"  means  nothing  at  all  unless  it  means 
that  the  existent  in  question  is  before  the  thing  derived.  To 
say  it  is  the  thing  derived,  is  to  reduce  the  words  to  nothing. 
If  it  mean  anything  to  speak  of  the  existent  as  derived  from  the 
existent,  it  is  because  each  of  these  is  an  existent — that  is,  a 
thing  belonging  to  a  class  and  distinguished  from  other  mem- 
bers of  this  class  by  some  difference.  In  this  case  the  difference 
is  that  of  before  and  after.  An  existent  derived  from  an  existent 
is  the  same  with  it  only  as  things  of  a  class  are  the  same.  If 
we  choose  to  eliminate  all  differences  and  speak  of  "t/ie  exist- 
ent "  we  may  do  so ;  but  then  it  is  inadmissible  to  raise  ques- 
tions about  its  derivation,  and  bring  in  those  very  time  distinc- 
tions between  different  "existents"  which  we  are  supposing 
absent. 

SEC.  24.  The  nihilistic  doctrine  of  Gorgias  of  Leontini,1 
who  taught  that  nothing  exists,  that  if  it  did  exist  it  could  not 
be  known,  and  that  if  it  did  exist  and  could  be  known  the  knowl- 
edge of  it  could  not  be  communicated  by  one  mind  to  another, 
is  founded  in  part  upon  such  bad  reasoning  that  it  is  rather  sur- 
prising that  Gorgias  should  have  been  guilty  of  it.  That  part  of 
it,  however,  which  has  to  do  with  the  communicability  of  knowl- 
edge is  rather  better  than  the  rest,  and  indicates  some  progress 
in  reflection.  A  sign,  he  says,  differs  from  the  thing  it  signifies. 
How  can  one  communicate  the  notion  of  color  by  words,  since 
the  ear  hears  sounds  and  not  colors  ?  Besides,  how  can  the  same 
idea  be  in  two  different  persons  ?  This  reasoning  would  seem  at 
least  plausible,  I  think,  to  many  minds  at  the  present  day.  It  is 
evidently  the  off  spring  of  a  confusion  of  samenesses.  A  sign  dif- 

1  Ueberweg.  Hist,  of  Pbilos.,  Vol.  I,  §  29,  p.  77. 


fers,  it  is  true,  from  the  thing  signified.  The  word  blue  heard 
by  the  ear  is  not  like  the  color  blue  seen  or  imagined.  But  if 
any  one  pronounce  the  word,  and  ask  me  if  I  am  thinking  of 
the  color  he  has  mentioned,  I  say  yes.  The  sound  is  not  like 
the  color,  but  it  is  its  representative,  and  one  of  the  proper  uses 
of  the  word  same  (the  fifth)  indicates  just  this  relation  between 
representative  and  thing  represented.  Any  attempt  to  discredit 
communication  of  knowledge  on  the  ground  that  one  cannot 
speak  colors,  and  that,  therefore,  one  man  is  speaking  one  thing 
and  the  other  thinking  another,  goes  on  the  supposition  that 
what  is  said  and  what  is  thought  must  be  the  same  in  sense  first 
(strict  identity)  or  in  sense  fourth  (must  be  a  thing  of  the  same 
kind).  And  as  to  the  existence  of  the  same  thing  in  two  minds ; 
here  Gorgias  has  evidently  discovered  with  some  surprise  that 
sameness  in  sense  sixth  differs  from  sameness  in  sense  first,  and 
has  felt  impelled  to  deny  it  the  name  altogether.  He  has  per- 
ceived a  duality  where  most  men  have  not  noticed  it;  and, 
instead  of  observing  that  there  are  samenesses  and  samenesses, 
and  that  the  communication  of  knowledge  is  concerned  with  the 
sixth  kind  in  this  connection,  and  not  with  the  first,  he  has 
denied  the  communication  of  knowledge.  Had  he  found  it 
necessary  to  carry  out  his  theoretic  premises  to  practical  con- 
clusions he  would  have  stopped  talking,  which  he  did  not ; 
though  presumably  the  irrepressible  didactic  instinct  would  have 
led  him,  spite  of  consistency,  to  imitate  Cratylus  in  moving  his 
finger. 

SEC.  25.  The  reasoning  in  the  Platonic  Dialogues  is  very  fre- 
quently not  above  suspicion  ;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  find  anywhere 
such  a  nest  of  paralogisms  as  we  have  in  the  Parmenides.  How  far 
Plato  was  in  earnest  in  all  this  quibbling,  and  what  was  his  aim, 
I  will  not  pretend  to  say.  He  has,  however,  very  well  illustrated 
the  possibilities  of  equivocation  in  juggling  with  samenesses,  and 


I  shall  quote  a  bit  of  the  argument  concerning  the  one  and  the 
many  to  show  how  readily  this  is  done.  Almost  any  part  of  the 
dialogue  would  do,  but  I  choose  the  first  bout  between  Par- 
menides  and  Aristoteles.  I  take  Professor  Jowett's  version  i1 

Parmenides  proceeded :  If  one  is,  he  said,  the  one  cannot 
be  many  ? 

Impossible. 

Then  the  one  cannot  have  parts,  and  cannot  be  a  whole? 

How  is  that  ? 

Why,  the  part  would  surely  be  the  part  of  a  whole  ? 

Yes. 

And  that  of  which  no  part  is  wanting,  would  be  a  whole  ? 

Certainly. 

Then,  in  either  case,  one  would  be  made  up  of  parts  ;  both  as 
being  a  whole,  and  also  as  having  parts  ? 

Certainly. 

And  in  either  case,  the  one  would  be  many,  and  not  one  ? 

True. 

But,  surely,  one  ought  to  be  not  many,  but  one  ? 

Surely. 

Then,  if  one  is  to  remain  one,  it  will  not  be  a  whole,  and  will 
not  have  parts  ? 

No. 

And  if  one  has  no  parts,  it  will  have  neither  beginning, 
middle,  nor  end  ;  for  these  would  be  parts  of  one  ? 

Right. 

But  then,  again,  a  beginning  and  an  end  are  the  limits  of 
everything  ? 

Certainly. 

Then  the  one,  neither  having  beginning  nor  end,  is  unlimited  ? 

Yes,  unlimited. 

!The  Dialogues  of  Plato.  N.  Y.,  1878.    Vol.  Ill,  p.  355. 


72 

And  therefore  formless,  as  not  being  able  to  partake  either  of 
round  or  straight. 

How  is  that  ? 

Why,  the  round  is  that  of  which  all  the  extreme  points  are 
equidistant  from  the  centre  ? 

Yes. 

And  the  straight  is  that  of  which  the  middle  intercepts  the 
extremes  ? 

True. 

Then  the  one  would  have  parts,  and  would  be  many,  whether 
it  partook  of  a  straight  or  of  a  round  form  ? 

Assuredly. 

But  having  no  parts,  one  will  be  neither  straight  nor  round  ? 

Right. 

Then,  being  of  such  a  nature,  one  cannot  be  in  any  place,  for 
it  cannot  be  either  in  another  or  in  itself. 

How  is  that  ? 

Because,  if  one  be  in  another,  it  will  be  encircled  in  that  other 
in  which  it  is  contained,  and  will  touch  it  in  many  places ;  but 
that  which  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  does  not  partake  of  a  cir- 
cular nature,  cannot  be  touched  by  a  circle  in  many  places. 

Certainly  not. 

And  one  being  in  itself,  will  also  contain  itself,  and  cannot  be 
other  than  one,  if  in  itself;  for  nothing  can  be  in  anything 
which  does  not  contain  it. 

Impossible. 

But  then,  is  not  that  which  contains  other  than  that  which  is 
contained?  for  the  same  whole  cannot  at  once  be  affected 
actively  and  passively ;  and  one  will  thus  be  no  longer  one,  but 
two? 

True. 

Then  one  cannot  be  anywhere,  either  in  itself  or  in  another  ? 

No. 


73 

Further  consider,  whether  that  which  is  of  such  a  nature  can 
have  either  rest  or  motion. 

Why  not  ? 

Why,  because  motion  is  either  motion  in  place  or  change  in 
self ;  these  are  the  only  kinds  of  motion. 

Yes. 

And  the  one,  when  changed  in  itself,  cannot  possibly  be  any 
longer  one. 

It  cannot. 

And  therefore  cannot  experience  this  sort  of  motion  ? 

Clearly  not. 

Can  the  motion  of  one,  then,  be  in  place  ? 

Perhaps. 

But  if  one  moved  in  place,  must  it  not  either  move  round  and 
round  in  the  same  place,  or  from  one  place  to  another  ? 

Certainly. 

And  that  which  moves  round  and  round  in  the  same  place* 
must  go  round  upon  a  centre ;  and  that  which  goes  round  upon 
a  centre  must  have  other  parts  which  move  around  the  centre ; 
but  that  which  has  no  centre  and  no  parts  cannot  possibly  be 
carried  round  upon  a  centre  ? 

Impossible. 

But  perhaps  the  motion  of  the  one  consists  in  going  from  one 
place  to  another  ? 

Perhaps  so,  if  it  moves  at  all. 

And  have  we  not  already  shown  that  one  can  not  be  in  any- 
thing ? 

Yes. 

And  still  greater  is  the  impossibility  of  one  coming  into  being 
in  anything? 

I  do  not  see  how  that  is. 

Why,  because  anything  which  comes  into  being  in  anything, 


74 

cannot  as  yet  be  in  that  other  thing  while  still  coming  into 
being,  nor  remain  entirely  out  of  it,  if  already  coming  into 
being  in  it. 

Certainly. 

And  therefore  whatever  comes  into  being  in  another  must 
have  parts,  and  the  one  part  may  be  in  that  other,  and  the  other 
part  out  of  it ;  but  that  which  has  no  parts  cannot  possibly  be  at 
the  same  time  a  whole,  which  is  either  within  or  without 
anything. 

True. 

And  how  can  that  which  has  neither  parts,  nor  a  whole,  come 
into  being  anywhere  either  as  a  part  or  a  whole?  Is  not  that  a 
still  greater  impossibility  ? 

Clearly. 

Then  one  does  not  change  by  a  change  of  place,  whether  by 
going  somewhere  and  coming  into  being  in  something;  or  again, 
by  going  round  in  the  same  place ;  or  again,  by  change  in  itself  ? 

True. 

The  one,  then,  is  incapable  of  any  kind  of  motion  ? 

Incapable. 

But  neither  can  the  one  exist  in  anything,  as  we  affirm  ? 

Yes,  that  is  affirmed  by  us. 

Then  it  is  never  in  the  same  ? 

Why  not  ? 

Because  being  in  the  same  is  being  in  something  which  is  the 
same. 

Certainly. 

But  it  cannot  be  in  itself,  and  cannot  be  in  other  ? 

True. 

Then  one  is  never  the  same  P1 

It  would  seem  not. 

1  'The  text  of  Stallbaum  (1848)  does  not  harmonize  with  this.     The  version  I  quote 
leaves  out  ei>,  and  reads  ™  avro  in  the  nominative. 


75 

And  that  which  is  never  in  the  same  has  no  rest,  and  stands 
not  still  ? 

It  cannot  stand  still. 

One,  then,  as  would  seem,  is  neither  standing  still  nor  in 
motion  ? 

Clearly  not. 

Neither  will  one  be  the  same  with  itself  or  other  ;  nor  again, 
other  than  itself,  or  other. 

How  is  that  ? 

If  other  than  itself  it  would  be  other  than  one,  and  would  not 
be  one. 

True. 

And  if  the  same  with  other,  it  would  be  that  other,  and  not 
itself ;  so  that  upon  this  supposition,  too,  it  would  not  have  the 
nature  of  one,  but  would  be  other  than  one  ? 

It  would. 

Then  it  will  not  be  the  same  with  other,  or  other  than  itself  ? 

It  will  not. 

Neither  will  one  be  other  than  other,  while  it  remains  one ;  for 
not  the  one,  but  only  the  other,  can  be  other  of  other,  and  noth- 
ing else. 

True. 

Then  not  by  virtue  of  being  one,  will  one  be  other  ? 

Certainly  not. 

But  if  not  by  virtue  of  being  one,  not  by  virtue  of  being 
itself ;  and  if  not  by  virtue  of  being  itself,  not  itself,  and  itself 
not  being  other  at  all,  will  not  be  other  of  anything  ? 

Right. 

Neither  will  one  be  the  same  with  itself. 

Why  not  ? 

Because  the  nature  of  the  one  is  surely  not  the  nature  of  the 
same. 


76 

Why  is  that  ? 

Because  when  a  thing  becomes  the  same  with  anything,  it  does 
not  necessarily  become  one. 

Why  not  ? 

That  which  becomes  the  same  with  the  many  necessarily 
becomes  many  and  not  one. 

True. 

And  yet,  if  there  were  no  difference  between  the  one  and  the 
same,  when  a  thing  became  the  same,  it  would  always  become 
one ;  and  when  it  became  one,  the  same. 

Certainly. 

And,  therefore,  if  one  be  the  same  with  one,  it  is  not  one  with 
one,  and  will  therefore  be  one  and  also  not  one. 

But  that  is  surely  impossible. 

And  therefore  the  one  can  neither  be  other  of  other,  nor  the 
same  with  one. 

Impossible. 

And  thus  one  is  neither  the  same,  nor  other,  in  relation  to 
itself  or  other  ? 

No. 

Neither  will  one  be  like  or  unlike  itself  or  other. 

Why  not  ? 

Because  likeness  is  sameness  of  affections. 

Yes. 

And  sameness  has  been  shown  to  be  a  nature  distinct  from 
oneness  ? 

That  has  been  shown. 

But  if  one  had  any  other  affection  than  that  of  being  one,  it 
would  be  affected  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  more  than  one ;  and  that 
is  impossible. 

True. 

Then  one  can  never  have  the  same  affections  either  as  another 
or  as  itself  ? 


77 

Clearly  not. 

Then  it  cannot  be  like  other,  or  like  itself. 

No. 

Nor  can  it  be  affected  so  as  to  be  other,  for  then  it  would  be 
affected  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  more  than  one. 

It  would. 

That  which  is  affected  in  a  manner  other  than  itself  or  other, 
will  be  unlike  itself  or  other,  if  sameness  of  affections  is  like- 
ness. 

True. 

But  the  one,  as  appears,  never  having  affections  other  than  its 
own,  is  never  unlike  itself  or  other? 

Never. 

Then  the  one  is  never  either  like  or  unlike  itself  or  other  ? 

Plainly  not. 

In  reading  this  extract  one  cannot  but  admire  the  courtesy  or 
wonder  at  the  simplicity  of  Aristoteles.  He  always  answers 
just  as  he  should  to  keep  the  ball  rolling;  and  he  is  in  no  wise 
compelled  to  do  this  under  the  circumstances,  for  the  argument 
is  loose  in  the  extreme.  Briefly  stated,  the  reasoning  is  as  fol- 
lows: 

One  cannot  be  a  whole,  and  cannot  have  parts,  for  then  it 
would  not  be  one,  but  many.  But  if  it  has  no  parts  it  has  no 
beginning,  middle,  or  end,  and  is  formless.  It  is  then  in  no 
place,  for  it  cannot  be  in  itself,  since  the  container  must  be  dif- 
ferent from  the  thing  contained ;  nor  can  it  be  in  other,  for  it 
would  have  to  be  encircled  by  that  other,  and  touched  in  many 
parts,  which  is  impossible.  It  follows  that  it  can  neither  be  at 
rest  nor  in  motion.  Not  in  motion ;  for  it  cannot  have  change 
in  itself,  or  it  would  no  longer  be  one ;  nor  can  it  have  motion  in 
place,  whether  circular  motion  upon  a  centre  or  motion  from 


78 

place  to  place ;  the  former  for  the  reason  that  circular  motion 
implies  a  centre  and  parts  around  the  centre ;  and  the  latter  be- 
cause one  is  in  no  place :  and  as  to  coming  into  being  in  anything, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  motion,  while  doing  this  it 
would  have  to  be  part  in  and  part  not  in,  which  is  impossible. 
It  cannot  be  at  rest,  for  one  is  never  in  the  same ;  to  be  in  the 
same,  is  to  be  in  something  which  is  the  same,  and  one  cannot  be 
in  anything.  Nor,  farther,  can  one  be  the  same  with  itself  or 
other,  nor  other  than  itself  or  other.  If  other  than  itself  it  would 
not  be  one ;  and  if  the  same  with  other  it  would  be  that  other,  and 
not  itself.  On  the  other  hand  only  other  can  be  the  other  of 
other,  and  not  one ;  and  the  one  cannot  be  the  same  with  itself, 
for  the  nature  of  the  one  is  not  the  nature  of  the  same,  since 
that  which  becomes  the  same  with  the  many  does  not  become 
one.  Finally,  one  cannot  be  like  or  unlike  itself  or  other,  for 
likeness  is  sameness  of  affections,  and  sameness  is  not  oneness ; 
one  must,  however,  have  no  affection  except  oneness,  or  it  be- 
comes more  than  one.  It  cannot,  then,  have  the  same  affections 
as  itself  or  other.  As,  for  the  same  reason,  it  cannot  have  other 
affections  than  itself  or  other,  it  cannot  be  unlike. 

We  have  here  one  chief  error,  which  runs  through  almost  the 
whole  of  the  argument — is,  indeed, the  "Kern"  of  the  "Pudel"- 
and  several  subsidiary  errors  of  different  kinds.  Some  of  these 
last  are  very  readily  discovered,  as  that  about  the  coming  into 
being  in  a  thing.  With  these,  however,  I  am  not  concerned.  I 
merely  remark  en  passant  that  they  may  all  be  cleared  up  with  a 
little  care  and  accuracy,  and  I  turn  to  the  main  error,  which  con- 
sists in  a  constant  confusion  of  two  kinds  of  sameness.  The 
fact  is  that  Parmenides  is  always  passing  from  "the  one,"  or  one 
in  the  abstract,  mere  oneness,  to  "a  one,"  or  one  object.  These 
are  no  more  identical  in  the  strict  sense  than  "manhood"  and 
"a  man,"  and  in  overlooking  their  difference  he  is  simply  con- 


79 

founding  the  first  and  the  fourth  kinds  of  sameness.  "The  one" 
cannot  have  parts,  for  the  good  reason  that  it  is  a  quality  taken 
by  itself,  and  not  a  thing,  which  is  thought  as  a  bundle  of  quali- 
ties. '•  A  one,"  on  the  other  hand,  may  have  parts,  and  each  of 
these  parts  maybe  "a  one"  too.  "A  one"  by  no  means  con- 
sists of  a  single  element,  oneness,  but  of  this  element  combined 
with  others ;  and  each  such  group  may  be  distinguished  from 
each  other  such  group,  and  all  be  recognized  as  similar,  or  the 
same  in  a  true  sense  of  the  word.  The  question  whether  one 
can  be  in  a  place,  too,  evidently  has  to  do,  not  with  "the  one," 
but  "a  one,"  for  spacial  or  temporal  differences  are invidualizing, 
and  distinguish  a  thing  from  another  thing  of  the  same  kind. 
To  ask  whether  "the  one"  may  or  maj-  not  be  in  a  place  is  in- 
admissible. 

The  same  error  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  argument  about  the- 
one's  being  in  motion  or  at  rest.  The  question  has  no  signifi- 
cance except  in  reference  to  "a  one."  If  we  speak  of  "the  one" 
as  in  motion,  we  at  once  put  this  abstract  element  in  such  a  rela- 
tion to  other  elements  that  we  have  no  longer  "the  one"  but 
"a  one."  "The  one"  cannot  have  change  in  itself  and  remain 
"the  one,"  but  "a  one"  may  change  a  good  deal  and  still  be 
"a  one."  And  without  admitting  the  justice  of  the  argument, 
that  what  has  no  parts  cannot  be  in  anything,  the  proof  of  the 
impossibility  of  motion  in  space  may  be  condemned  merely  upon 
the  ground  that  it  is  only  "the  one"  which  cannot  have  parts, 
while  it  is  only  "a  one"  which  is  concerned  in  the  problem  of 
motion.  The  same  may  be  said  for  the  argument  against  the 
one's  coming  into  being  in  anything.  It  is  only  "a  one"  which 
can  be  thought  as  coming  into  being  in  a  thing,  and  "a  one" 
may  have  parts.  As  for  the  impossibility  of  the  one's  being  at 
rest,  on  the  ground  that  to  be  at  rest,  a  thing  must  be  in  the  same, 
and  one  cannot  be  in  anything — this  is  a  repetition  of  the  former 


So 

error.  "A  one"  may  be  in  something,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
even  on  the  basis  established  at  the  outset,  and  it  is  with  this, 
and  not  with  "  the  one,"  that  we  are  concerned  in  the  problem 
of  rest  and  motion. 

The  rest  of  the  argument  is  based  upon  errors  of  a  different 
kind,  and  in  it  one  may  keep  to  "the  one"  throughout,  if  one 
choose.  There  is,  of  course,  no  reason  to  think  that  the  speaker 
did  this.  He  probably  here,  as  before,  carried  over  to  "a  one," 
one  thought  as  an  individual  thing,  distinctions  drawn  in  view  of 
"the  one,"  one  viewed  in  the  abstract.  As  some  of  the  state- 
ments made  may  be  true  or  false  as  one  is  taken  in  this  sense  or 
that ;  and  particularly  as  the  antinomy  rests  upon  a  misconcep- 
tion as  to  the  nature  of  sameness,  I  will  continue  the  analysis. 
What  is  to  be  proved  is,  first,  that  one  cannot  be  the  same  with 
itself  or  other,  or  other  than  itself  or  other  ;  and  second,  that  it 
cannot  be  like  or  unlike  itself  or  other.  The  position  that  the 
one,  if  other  than  itself,  would  not  be  one,  and  if  the  same  with 
other,  would  be  that  other,  is  somewhat  ambiguous.  If  "a  one" 
is  in  question,  it  may  undoubtedly  be  "a  one"  and  yet  be 
other  than  any  particular  one ;  and  it  may  be  the  same  with 
other — another  one — without  ceasing  to  be  one,  if  by  same  we 
mean  similar.  The  play  upon  words  in  "other  of  other"  it  is 
not  necessary  to  consider.  The  conclusion  that  one  cannot  be 
the  same  with  itself  is  based  upon  the  supposition  that  sameness 
is  a  quality  superadded  to  the  other  qualities  of  a  thing ;  but  in 
its  first  sense  the  word  does  not  even  serve  to  indicate  a  rela- 
tion ;  it  is  merely  used  to  point  out  the  absence  of  duality.  Both 
"a  one"  and  "the  one"  may  be  the  same  with  themselves  per- 
fectly well,  and  in  saying  so  we  do  not  in  thought  endow  them 
with  any  quality  not  already  possessed.  This  last  error  serves 
also  as  a  basis  to  the  second  paradoxical  position,  that  one  can- 
not be  like  or  unlike  itself  or  other.  It  assumes  likeness  and  un- 


8i 

likeness  to  be  qualities  added  to  the  other  qualities  of  things 
which  are  like  or  unlike. 

A  possible  objection  to  my  use  of  the  term  "a  one"  I  must 
forestall  before  passing  on.  I  have  used  this  as  synonymous 
with  "  one  object."  One  horse  is  one  object,  and  so  is  one  part 
of  a  horse.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  "a one"  may  also  be 
used  to  signify  a  single  occurrence  of  oneness,  as  distinguished 
from  another  occurrence  of  oneness.  That  any  element  of  con- 
sciousness may  be  distinguished  from  any  similar  element  merely 
by  spatial  or  temporal  differences  I  have  argued  in  the  first 
part  of  my  monograph.  Why  may  not  then  "a  one"  mean  the 
oneness  of  this  one  horse,  or  the  oneness  of  this  part  of  the 
horse?  And  if  it  may,  can  "a  one"  of  this  kind  have  parts  any 
more  than  "the  one  ?" 

I  answer,  it  cannot ;  for  it  is  then  only  a  particular  occurrence 
of  the  quality  (if  I  may  so  use  the  word)  of  oneness.  But,  then, 
if  we  so  understand  the  term,  the  argument  loses  all  signifi- 
cance. We  cannot  call  "a  one"  of  this  kind  a  container  or  a 
thing  contained,  or  talk  of  it  as  encircled  by  anything.  We  do 
not  even  try  to  imagine  it  as  moving  on  its  centre,  or  passing 
from  place  to  place,  or  coming  into  being  in  anything,  or  being 
at  rest  in  anything.  Such  language  we  use  only  in  speaking  of 
things.  It  seems  to  me  plain  that  the  speaker  is  thinking  of  one 
as  a  thing,  and  it  is  this  that  gives  its  charm  to  the  bundle  of 
paradoxes.  The  Eleatic  "one"  was  always  a  thing  and  not  mere 
unity  or  an  occurrence  of  unity.  My  criticism  of  the  reasoning 
is,  I  think,  just.  And  whether  Plato  is  responsible  for  the  Par- 
menides  or  not,  we  must  agree  that  such  a  confusion  of  "the 
one"  and  "a  one  "(as  an  object)  would  not  be  foreign  to  his 
modes  of  thought.  His  world  of  Ideas  is  peopled  with  "the"'s 
turned  into  "a"'s,  a  fact  which  his  acute  pupil  Aristotle  was 
not  slow  to  discover.1 

1  Metaph.  XII,  c.  4- 


82 

SEC.  26.  Aristotle  has  again  and  again  discussed  with  his 
usual  keenness  the  kinds  of  sameness.  He  saw  well  enough 
that  the  word  is  ambiguous,  and  may  with  equal  right  be  employed 
in  speaking  of  experiences  which  do  or  do  not  contain  an  element 
of  duality.  He  has  pointed  out  that  the  law  of  non-contradic- 
tion has  to  do  with  sameness  of  the  first  kind,  and  not  with  the 
others.1  His  question  as  to  "  Socrates"  and  "  Socrates  sitting," 
his  treatment  of  "Coriscus"  and  "the  musical  Coriscus,"  his 
statement  that  the  white  and  the  musical  are  the  same  when  they 
are  accidents  in  the  same  subject,2  show  that  he  clearly  under- 
stood the  significance  of  sameness  in  sense  third.  He  gives  us 
sense  fourth  when  he  says  that  things  may  be  called  the  same 
when  they  belong  to  the  same  species  or  genus.3  In  his  polemic 
against  the  Protagorean  doctrine  of  relativity,4  senses  sixth  and 
seventh  come  to  the  surface,  though  they  are  not  very  clearly  or 
exhaustively  discussed.  The  fallacy  in  the  apparent  possibility 
of  attributing  contradictory  predicates  to  the  same  subject,  from 
the  fact  that  the  same  wine  may  appear  sweet  to  one  taster  and 
not  sweet  to  another,  or  at  one  time  sweet  and  at  another  not 
sweet  to  the  one  palate,  is  laid  bare  in  the  distinction  between 
kinds  of  sameness.  Aristotle  distinguishes  between  the  wine 
itself  and  the  sensations  it  produces  in  different  persons,  and  he 
recognizes  the  fact  that  one  man's  perception  of  the  "  same" 
wine  need  not  be  wholly  like  that  of  another.  But  this  does  not 
imply  any  violation  of  the  law  of  non-contradiction,  for  each 
sensation  is  just  what  it  is  at  any  instant ;  and  the  statement  that 
the  same  wine  is  sweet  and  not  sweet  at  the  one  moment 
amounts  only  to  saying  that  the  one  object  can  cause  dissimilar 
sensations  in  two  minds  at  one  moment.  As  much  may  be  said 

1  Metaph.    Ill,  c.  5,  §  10 ;  c.  6,  §  3. 

*Ibid.    Ill,  c.  2,  §  6 ;  IV,  c.  6,  §  i,  and  c.  9,  §  i. 

*Ibid.  IV,  c.  9,  §i,   and  c.  6. 

*I6id.    Ill,  c.  5,  §10 ;  X,  c.  6,  §6. 


83 

for  the  non-simultaneous  sensations  of  the  one  man.  Sensations 
differing  in  time  are  two,  and  may  differ  without  violating  any 
law.  In  marking  the  fact  that  when  we  say  two  men  perceive 
the  same  thing  we  do  not  mean  that  the  immediate  object  of 
knowledge  is  in  the  two  cases  strictly  one,  but  merely  that  these 
two  objects  are  related  in  a  peculiar  way,  Aristotle  draws  the  line 
between  sameness  in  sense  first  and  in  sense  sixth.  As  to  sense 
seventh.  He  distinguishes  between  the  apparent  and  the  real, 
and  yet  goes  on  speaking,  quite  in  modern  fashion,  as  though 
one  thing  could  serve  for  both.  He  points  out,  h  propos  of  press- 
ing upon  the  eyeball  and  doubling  the  visual  image,  that  there 
is  a  distinction  between  the  apparent  and  the  real,  and  then 
closes  the  paragraph  with  the  remark  that  "  to  those  persons  who 
do  not  move  their  organ  of  vision  that  which  is  one  appears 
one."1  This  language  would  certainly  seem  to  indicate  that  that 
which  is  appears — or  that  they  are  the  same  in  some  strict  sense 
of  the  word.  The  sentence  reads  much  in  the  style  of  Mr. 
Spencer  or  Sir  William  Hamilton. 

It  appears,  then,  that  Aristotle  recognized  a  sameness  in  which 
there  is  no  sense  of  duality,  and  samenesses  in  which  two  things 
are  called  the  same  and  yet  distinguished  as  two.  Our  way  of 
expressing  strict  identity,  however,  a  way  which,  as  I  have 
shown,  does  not  properly  express  it  all — seems  to  have  misled 
him  into  finding  a  sort  of  quasi  duality  even  here,  where  he 
knows  it  to  be  really  absent.  In  a  chapter2  devoted  to  sameness 
and  diversity,  he  closes  his  list  of  samenesses  with  the  remark  : 
"  It  is  plain  that  sameness  is  a  oneness  either  of  two  or  more 
things  with  reference  to  their  essence,  or  of  one  thing  treated  as 
two ;  as  when  you  say  a  thing  is  the  same  with  itself,  for  then 
you  do  treat  it  as  two."  We  do  employ  two  words,  undoubtedly ; 
but  if  we  are  really  thinking  a  thing  as  itself,  we  are  not  making  it 

1  Metaph.  X,  c.  6,  §  2.  2  Ibid.    IV,  c.  9. 


84 

dual  in  any  sense  whatever.      The  quotation  smacks  just  a  little 
of  Cratylus. 

SEC.  27.  The  sceptical  arguments  of  Pyrrho  are  excellent 
instances  of  a  confusion  of  samenesses.  The  argument,  for 
example,  that  since  an  apple  seen  by  the  eye  as  yellow  seems  to 
the  taste  sweet,  and  to  the  smell  as  fragrant,  "  that  which  is  seen 
is  just  as  likely  to  be  something  else  as  the  reality  j"1  this  argu 
ment  gains  what  little  plausibility  it  may  have  from  the  assump- 
tion that  an  object  seen  and  an  object  tasted  are  (or  ought  to  be) 
the  same  in  sense  first  instead  of  sense  third. 

And  the  complaints,  that  things  believed  to  be  large,  some- 
times, as  when  at  a  distance,  appear  small ;  that  things  which  we 
believe  to  be  straight,  sometimes  seem  bent ;  that  the  sun  has 
one  appearance  in  the  morning,  and  another  at  noon  ;2  these,  and 
all  others  like  them,  assume  that  an  object  seen  near  at  hand  and 
then  seen  at  a  distance,  a  stick  seen  as  straight  and  then  seen  as 
crooked,  the  sun  on  the  horizon  and  the  sun  at  the  zenith,  are  in 
each  case  one  strictly,  and  not  merely  one  as  each  element  in  a 
complex  of  experiences  is  one  with  each  other  element,  when 
any  one  may  represent  the  whole.  The  conclusion  that,  since  it 
is  not  possible  to  view  things  without  reference  to  "  place  and 
position,"  their  true  nature  cannot  be  known,3  is  founded  upon 
this  error. 

This  becomes  clear  when  one  asks,  what  is  it,  after  all,  the 
nature  of  which  is  so  in  doubt  ?  Is  it  a  stick  ?  the  sun  ?  These 
words  are  ambiguous.  Two  consecutive  experiences  of  the  same 
stick — as  we  ordinarily  use  this  word  in  speaking  of  sticks — are 
not  strictly  identical,  and  need  not  be  alike.  The  stick  seen 
on  two  occasions  is  not  the  same  stick  in  sense  I.  If  I  limit 
the  meaning  of  the  words  "the  stick"  to  one  of  these  expe- 

1  Diogenes  Laertius.    IX,  9. 
*Ibid.  loc.  cit. 
3  Ibid.  loc.  cit. 


85 

riences,  then  the  true  nature  of  the  stick  is  just  what  is 
experienced  on  that  occasion.  What  is  experienced  on  the  second 
occasion  is  another  stick,  and  its  true  nature  is  also  just  what  it 
seems  to  be.  If,  however,  by  "the  stick"  I  do  not  mean  only 
the  experience  of  one  moment,  but  a  series  of  experiences  differ- 
ing more  or  less  from  one  another,  then  I  am  under  no  necessity 
to  select  one  of  them  as  the  true  nature  of  the  stick,  for  its  true 
nature  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  whole  group  of  expe- 
riences. If  I  try  to  discover  or  to  invent  some  new  experience 
which  I  may  call  the  true  nature  of  the  group,  I  am  simply  add- 
ing to  it  in  thought  another  experience  which  takes  its  place  among 
those  the  group  already  contains.  I  am  playing  with  the  word 
nature.  This  last  experience  could  not  be  more  important  than 
those  among  which  it  is  placed,  and  it  could  not  stand  for  any 
one  of  them  in  any  other  way  than  each  of  them  could  stand  for 
it.  Should  it  be  objected  that  by  "  the  stick"  one  does  not  mean 
either  a  single  experience  of  the  stick  or  the  sum  total  of  the  group 
of  experiences,  but  a  something  distinct  from  all  these  and 
inferred  through  them,  I  answer,  that  in  this  case  the  argument 
from  the  variability  of  experiences  is  not  to  the  point.  Such  a 
"stick"  as  this  would  be  the  same  with  either  of  those  just  dis- 
cussed only  in  the  seventh  sense  of  the  word,  and  its  nature 
would  be  the  same  with  their  nature  only  in  that  sense  too.  An 
experience  of  the  stick  out  of  "place  and  position,"  if  that  were 
conceivable,  would  not  give  us  this  "  stick,"  for  such  an  expe~ 
rience  would  still  be  an  experience.  It  must' never  be  forgotten 
that  this  "  external"  stick  is  quite  distinct  from  any  or  all  expe- 
riences, and  could  not  be  given  in  experiences  of  any  kind.  It 
can  only  be  inferred.  If  an  unvarying  series  of  experiences  is 
good  ground  for  inferring  an  unvarying  "  external"  stick,  sim- 
ilar to  what  is  experienced,  one  would  suppose  a  varying  series 
of  experiences  would  furnish  a  basis  for  inference  of  a  varying 


86 

"  external"  stick,  in  its  successive  phases  like  what  is  experienced. 
Unless  some  reason  is  given  for  a  discrimination  in  favor  of  the 
unvarying  series,  the  argument  from  variation  does  not  affect  the 
"  external"  stick  at  all. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  in  this  particular  argument,  at  least, 
the  "  external"  is  not  in  Pyrrho's  mind  at  all.  What  perplexes 
him  is,  that  what  he  is  accustomed  to  call  a  straight  stick  some- 
times looks  crooked.  On  reflection  he  discovers  that  he  calls  it 
straight  only  because  it  seems  straight  on  some  occasions  ;  and 
if  it  may  at  one  time  seem  straight  and  at  another  seem  crooked, 
which  is  it  in  reality  ?  The  question  is  a  very  natural  one.  The 
unreflective  do  not  ask  it,  because  they  assume  that  one  of  the  ex- 
periences is  to  be  taken  as  expressing  the  true  nature  of  the  object 
and  the  other  relegated  to  the  sphere  of  more  or  less  deceptive  ap- 
pearance. The  man  who  has  begun  to  reflect  does  ask  it,  because 
he  sees  that  the  assumed  true  nature  is  an  appearance  too,  and  it 
naturally  occurs  to  him  that  it  also  may  be  deceptive.  If  he 
reflected  more,  he  would  see  that  he  is  partly  right  and  partly 
wrong.  We  do  not  regard  as  equally  important  every  element  in 
the  group  of  experiences  which  we  call  an  object.  Certain  ele- 
ments, notably  the  tactual  qualities  and  those  visual  experiences 
which  give  us  the  best  opportunity  of  inferring  the  tactual  qual- 
ities, stand  in  the  foreground  when  we  speak  of  the  object.  We 
name  the  object  according  to  these.  In  saying  "a  straight 
stick"  we  have  prominently  in  mind  certain  tactual  experiences, 
and  certain  visual  experiences  which  normally  are  connected  with 
these  and  give  us  the  right  to  infer  them.  We  call  any  appear- 
ance delusive  which  leads  us  to  infer  tactual  experiences,  and 
visual  experiences  of  a  kind  regarded  as  best  representative  of 
these  tactual  experiences,  when  such  cannot  be  actually  expe- 
rienced. Certain  elements  in  the  total  group,  which  is  to  us  an 
experienced  object,  may  then  properly  be  regarded  as  in  a  sense 


87 

the  true  nature  of  the  object,  they  are  the  most  important  part, 
and  the  part  to  which  other  elements  are  referred.  These  ele- 
ments may  justly  be  regarded  as  delusive  when  they  mislead 
us  in  our  inferences  as  to  the  important  elements.  So  far  the 
common  man  is  right.  And  as  no  element  is  delusive  in  itself, 
but  only  in  so  far  as  it  refers  the  mind  to  something  else,  and  to 
the  wrong  something  else,  those  elements  which  are  ultimate  and 
not  used  as  signs  of  others,  cannot  be  delusive.  In  raising  this 
question  with  regard  to  them  Pyrrho  is  wrong.  These  elements 
may,  to  be  sure,  be  used  as  signs  or  indications  of  any  other 
elements  in  the  group,  and  in  their  turn  made  stepping  stones ; 
but  this  is  not  commonly  done,  and  language  and  common 
thought  rarely  mark  logical  possibilities.  The  language  in  use 
fairly  expresses  the  attitude  of  the  average  man  towards  the  ele- 
ments in  his  thought. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  unreflective  man  speaks  as  if  the  less 
important,  or  perhaps  I  had  better  say  less  prominent,  experi- 
ences were  not  a  part  of  the  object  as  he  knows  it.  He  seems 
to  regard  the  whole  object  as  actually  present,  when  a  single 
experience  only  is  present.  In  putting  all  experiences  on  the 
same  plane,  so  to  speak,  the  Pyrrhonist  makes  a  genuine  advance. 
Wherein  he  errs  is  this :  He  sees  that  a  stick  seen  near  at  hand 
is  as  much  an  experience  or  appearance  as  a  stick  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  that  one  of  these  phenomena  does  not  differ  in  kind 
from  the  other  ;  he  sees  also  that  to  assume  that  one  is  the  real 
stick  and  the  other  is  not,  seems  to  go  upon  the  assumption  that 
they  differ  in  kind  ;  he  is  consequently  unwilling  to  call  any  one 
of  his  experiences  the  real  stick,  and  yet  he  insists  upon  looking 
for  a  real  stick,  which  may  be  expressed  in  a  single  experience. 
It  never  seems  to  occur  to  him  that  the  real  stick  may  be  the 
name  of  the  whole  series  of  experiences  in  their  appropriate 
relations.  He  wishes  a  sameness  in  the  strict  sense,  with  no 


88 

element  of  duality.  The  stick  seen  straight  in  the  air,  and  seen 
bent  in  the  water,  is  the  same  stick  in  sense  third.  It  takes 
both  of  these  experiences  to  express  the  true  nature  of  this 
stick.  No  one  experience  could  serve.  It  is  the  battle  between 
stick  as  a  single  experience,  and  stick  as  a  group  of  experiences, 
that  leads  to  all  the  confusion. 

I  have  given  as  much  space  to  Pyrrho  as  I  care  to,  and  I  will 
not  delay  over  him  and  his  successors.  These  furnish  good 
material  to  one  fond  of  analysis.  There  is,  however,  a  great 
deal  of  repetition  among  the  sceptics.  They  occupy  themselves 
chiefly  either  in  confounding  the  first  kind  of  sameness  with  the 
third,  as  in  the  preceding  ;  or  in  confounding  the  first  kind  with 
the  sixth,  as  in  the  argument  for  uncertainty  drawn  from  the 
varying  guise  under  which  the  same  object  appears  to  different 
persons.  The  ambiguity  of  the  word  same,  as  here  used,  is 
apparent,  and  it  is  in  this  ambiguity  that  they  become  entangled. 

SEC.  28.  Into  the  labyrinths  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  I 
hesitate  to  enter,  and  yet  I  could  hardly  be  excused  for  passing  on 
to  the  moderns  without  at  least  a  reference  to  the  great  dispute 
over  Universals — a  dispute  which  is,  at  bottom,  a  quarrel  con- 
cerning samenesses.  I  shall  speak  of  it  very  briefly. 

The  object  of  the  general  term  or  class  name  is  in  question. 
Plato,  distinguishing  between  the  universal  and  the  individual, 
between  man  and  men,  thought  it  necessary,  according  to  Aris- 
totle, who  has  not,  I  think,  done  him  injustice,  to  assume  an 
object  for  the  universal  outside  of  and  apart  from  all  the  indi- 
viduals forming  a  class.  The  Idea  is  a  real  thing,  the  real  thing 
in  which  the  individuals  participate,  or  of  which  they  are  copies  ; 
but  it  is  not  itself  to  be  found  in  any  or  all  of  them,  except,  so 
to  speak,  in  a  figurative  or  metaphorical  way.  Aristotle,  finding 
no  reason  to  assume  a  new  individual,  for  so  he  regarded  the 
Platonic  Idea,  placed  the  universal  in  the  individuals  composing 


89 

the  class.  Certain  of  the  schoolmen,  emphasizing  the  distinc- 
tion between  real  things  and  mental  representations,  maintained 
that  only  individuals  have  real  existence,  and  asserted  either 
that  universals  exist  merely  as  peculiar  combinations  of  mental 
elements  which  serve  to  think  the  objects  forming  a  class,  or 
that  the  universal  is  the  word,  which  may  be  applied  indiffer- 
ently to  many  individuals  of  one  kind.  In  these  views  we  have 
the  universalia  ante  rem,  the  universalia  in  re,  and  the  imiver- 
salia  post  rem ;  or  extreme  Realism,  moderate  Realism,  and 
Nominalism  in  its  two  forms. 

The  examination  into  the  respective  merits  of  the  positions 
which  have  been  taken  with  regard  to  universals  will  be  facili- 
tated by  distinguishing  carefully  between  the  different  spheres 
of  being  ;  that  is,  between  things  immediately  known  and  "real" 
things  mediately  known,  as  also  between  things  contained  in 
one  consciousness  and  those  contained  in  another.  It  is  plainly 
important  not  to  confound  these  classes  with  each  other. 

Let  us  take,  first,  a  number  of  resembling  objects  in  a  single 
consciousness.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  when  we  say 
several  such  objects  are  the  same  we  do  not  at  all  mean  to  deny 
that  they  are  distinct  objects.  We  merely  wish  to  indicate  that 
each  possesses  certain  elements  which,  taken  by  themselves, 
and  after  making  abstraction  from  all  other  elements,  render 
impossible  any  distinction  between  different  objects.  We  dis- 
tinguish two  objects  as  two  through  some  difference,  even  if  it 
be  only  local  or  temporal.  Redness  combined  with  x  and  red- 
ness combined  with  y  are  recognized  as  two  occurrences  of  red- 
ness, but  this  only  on  account  of  x  and  y.  Redness  perceived 
to-day  and  redness  perceived  yesterday  are  two  occurrences  of 
redness,  marked  as  such  by  the  "to-day"  and  the  "yesterday." 
Redness  considered  simply  contains  nothing  which  will  allow 
of  such  distinctions.  This  does  not  imply  at  all  that  redness 


90 

considered  simply  is  an  occurrence  of  redness — that  since  we 
have  not  two  or  more  occurrence  of  the  quality  we  have  a  single 
occurrence  of  it,  an  individual.  We  have  not,  if  we  have  really 
abstracted  from  all  save  the  redness,  any  "  occurrence  "  or 
"  occurrences"  at  all,  for  these  imply  just  the  elements  of  differ- 
ence which  we  are  endeavoring  to  eliminate.  An  "occurrence" 
of  redness  means  redness  with  a  difference  which  will  mark  it 
out  from  other  redness,  from  another  "occurrence."  If,  then, 
one  gives  to  twenty  individuals  a  common  name  to  indicate  that 
they  resemble  each  other,  or  are  in  some  sense  the  same,  he 
should  keep  clearly  in  mind  just  what  this  means.  It  means 
that  along  with  various  differing  elements  each  contains  the  ele- 
ment x.  He  should  remember  that  each  individual  is  the  same  with 
each  other  individual  only  in  this  sense,  sense  fourth.  When  he 
proposes  to  separate  the  x  from  the  other  elements,  and  consider  it 
separately,  he  should  be  most  careful  to  see  that  he  is  really 
taking  it  separately,  and  not  allowing  shreds  of  foreign  matter 
to  hang  to  it  and  give  rise  to  difficulties  and  perplexities.  He 
should  not  overlook  the  fact  that  there  is  a  fallacy  in  the  very 
question,  Whether  the  x  in  one  individual  is  identical  (the  same 
in  sense  first)  with  the  x  in  any  other  individual  ?  If  these  two 
x's  are  distinguishable  as  in  two  individuals,  one  is  not  consider- 
ing x  merely,  but  x  with  other  elements.  The  separation  of  the 
x  element  from  the  other  elements  in  the  objects  is  here  not 
complete,  or  one  would  be  considering  not  "an  x  "  or  "x's,"  but 
x.  Any  one  who  sees  this  must  see  that  he  who  asks  such  a 
question  is  retaining  a  duality,  and  then  trying  to  get  out  of  it 
an  identity  with  no  element  of  duality.  He  is  "  milking  the  he- 
goat."  He  is  trying  to  reduce  sameness  in  sense  fourth  to 
sameness  in  sense  first. 

Twenty  objects  immediately  known  must  not  be  confounded 
with  twenty  "  real  "  things  not  immediately  known,  and  of  which 


the  objects  are  supposed  to  be  representatives.  These  two 
classes  are  the  same  with  each  other  only  in  sense  seventh.  I 
have  discussed  in  detail  in  the  first  part  of  my  monograph  the 
samenesses  of  "  real "  things,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  repeat 
what  I  have  said.  It  is  enough  to  state  that  it  was  there  made 
evident  that  when  we  speak  of  a  number  of  similar  "  real " 
things  as  the  same,  we  use  the  word  in  sense  fourth,  and  have  in 
mind  just  the  elements  which  are  present  when  we  speak  of  several 
similar  immediate  objects  of  knowledge  as  the  same.  We  are 
merely  carrying  over  to  a  set  of  imagined  duplicates  a  distinc- 
tion which  we  observe  in  objects  recognized  as  within  conscious- 
ness. When,  therefore,  we  give  twenty  "  real "  things  a  com- 
mon name,  and  form  them  into  a  class,  because  they  are  alike, 
we  mean  that  along  with  various  other  "  real  "  elements,  each  of 
these  objects  contains  the  "  real  "  element  x.  The  word  same 
means  to  us  just  what  it  does  when  we  speak  of  twenty  similar 
immediate  objects  as  the  same.  We  have  changed  only  the 
objects  ;  we  have  not  changed  the  sameness  and  all  that  depends 
upon  it.  Two  such  objects  are  the  same  in  sense  fourth,  and 
never  in  sense  first.  If  they  could  be  the  same  in  sense  first, 
they  would  not  be  two.  When  a  man  undertakes  to  separate  in 
thought  the  "  real "  x  element  from  the  other  "  real  "  elements 
in  two  or  more  such  objects,  he  should  be  careful,  as  in  the  case 
of  immediate  objects,  to  make  a  complete  separation  and  not  a 
partial  one.  He  should  see  here,  too,  that  the  question  whether 
the  x  in  one  object  and  the  x  in  another  are  strictly  identical,  is 
a  foolish  one.  "  This  x  "  and  "that  x  "  are  not  strictly  identical,  or 
they  would  not  be  "this  x"  and  "that  x."  Remove  completely  the 
"  this  "  and  the  "  that  "  and  all  other  differing  elements — leave, 
that  is,  only  x,  and  the  possibility  of  any  such  question  simply 
disappears.  If  there  still  seem  to  any  one  ground  for  a  ques- 
tion in  the  premises,  it  is  evidence  that  he  is  not  considering 


92 

merely  x.  He  is  trying  to  keep  two  things  two,  and  yet  make 
them  one. 

Twenty  objects  in  one  consciousness  must  not  be  confounded 
with  twenty  objects  in  another.  When  we  speak  of  two  men  as 
seeing  the  same  thing,  we  do  not  mean  that  the  object  in  one 
mind  is  the  same  with  the  object  in  the  other  in  sense  first,  but 
in  sense  sixth.  This  does  not  prevent  them  from  being  two.  A 
single  object  in  one  mind  may  be  the  same  with  itself  in  sense 
first.  A  number  of  similar  objects  in  one  mind  may  be  the  same 
in  sense  fourth.  Two  objects  or  two  classes  of  objects  in  dif- 
ferent minds  may  be  the  same  in  sense  sixth.  One  may,  to  be 
sure,  think  of  twenty  objects  in  one  mind,  and  of  the  same 
(sense  sixth)  twenty  objects  in  another  mind  as  forty  objects. 
Philosophical  reflection  naturally  leads  to  this.  I  am  inducing  a 
reader  to  do  it  when  I  tell  him  that  an  object  in  one  mind  and 
the  same  object  in  another  are  two  objects.  But  in  doing  this, 
one  must  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  forty  objects  belong  to 
two  quite  distinct  classes,  and  that  common  language  would  not 
reckon  them  as  forty,  but  as  twenty.  In  this  there  is,  of  course, 
a  pitfall  for  the  unwary. 

Now,  when  Plato  looked  for  the  object  of  the  general  name, 
for  the  x  contained  in  a  class  of  similar  objects,  what  did  he  do? 
He  created  a  new  object  distinct  from  and  apart  from  all  the 
others.  He  is  very  vague  in  his  statements,  and  he  was  probably 
quite  as  vague  in  his  thought ;  but  I  cannot  see  how  anyone 
familiar  with  the  Phaedrus,  the  Republic,  the  Timaeus,  the 
Symposium  and  the  Parmenides,  and  familiar  with  Plato's  concrete 
way  of  thinking  in  images,  can  avoid  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  Idea  was  to  him  predominantly  an  object,  an  individual 
— a  vague  and  inconsistent  object,  if  you  please,  but  still  an 
object.  But  an  x  is  in  no  sense  a  universal.  It  is  the  same  with 
other  x's  only  in  sense  fourth;  that  is,  it  is  like  them.  The 


93 

x  that  they  have  in  common  must  be  x  considered  simply 
not  x  considered  as  here  or  there,  in  this  place  or  in  that.  All 
such  differences  must  be  eliminated  if  one  is  to  get  not  an 
individual,  but  a  universal.  If  the  Idea  may  be  considered  as 
apart  from  objects,  it  is  an  object  in  so  far  not  essentially  differ- 
ing from  the  others.  Again,  the  Platonic  Idea  is  an  object,  but 
not  to  be  put  upon  the  same  plane  with  other  objects.  They 
suffer  change,  while  it  is  immutable  ;  they  are  perceivable  by 
the  senses,  and  it  is  not.  The  objects  of  sense  and  the  Idea  are 
in  different  worlds ;  and  though  we  cannot  accuse  Plato  of 
drawing  the  distinctions  of  the  modern  hypothetical  realist,  he 
has  certainly  given  us  a  suggestive  parallel  to  the  Lockian  ideas 
and  "  real "  things.  The  trouble  has  arisen  out  of  his  difficulty 
in  keeping  an  abstraction  abstract ;  he  has  turned  it  into  a 
concrete,  and,  finding  in  the  world  of  sense  no  place  for  this 
concrete,  this  new  individual,  he  has  given  it  a  world  of  its  own. 
Whatever  this  object  in  this  world  apart  may  be,  it  is  certainly 
not  what  is  common  to  twenty  individuals  in  the  world  of  sen- 
sible things. 

Aristotle,  seeing  this  difficulty,  placed  the  idea  in  the  objects 
forming  the  class.  It  may  be  objected  that  putting  x  in  a  place 
individualizes  it  as  much  as  putting  it  out  of  a  place.  This  is 
quite  true  if  the  "  in  "  is  taken  locally — taken  as  it  is  when  we 
speak  of  a  man  as  being  in  one  room  rather  than  another.  The 
x  in  one  object  is  not  identically  the  x  in  another  object.  We 
do  not  get  the  universal,  x  in  the  abstract,  until  we  lose  the 
distinctions  "in  the  one  object,"  and  "in  the  other  object." 
Two  x's  cannot  be  the  same  in  sense  first,  from  the  mere  fact 
that  they  are  two ;  an  x  in  one  place  and  an  x  in  another  place 
are  always  two.  If,  however,  by  the  statement  that  the  universal 
is  in  the  objects,  one  mean  merely  that  the  universal  is  that 
element  x,  which,  combined  with  certain  elements,  forms  a  total 


94 

which  is  known  as  this  object,  and  combined  with  certain  others 
forms  a  total  which  is  known  as  that,  but  taken  by  itself  con- 
tains no  distinction  of  this  and  that ;  if  this  is  all  that  is  meant 
by  the  "in,"  there  is  no  objection  to  the  use  of  the  statement, 
and  it  is  strictly  true.  The  x  element  is  a  part  of  each  of  the 
objects,  but,  until  some  addition  is  made  to  it,  it  is  not  "the  x  in 
this  object "  or  "the  x  in  that  object"  ;  it  is  what  they  have  in 
common.  The  "in  common"  means  just  this. 

The  Nominalistic  doctrine  that  only  individuals  have  real 
existence,  and  that  the  universal,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  mind,  distinguishes  between  the  spheres  of  being 
and  denies  to  one  what  it  allows  to  another.  Of  the  extreme 
nominalistic  position,  that  the  only  true  universal  is  the  word, 
which  may  be  applied  indifferently  to  several  distinct  objects,  I 
shall  not  here  speak.  I  have  discussed  this  wholly  untenable 
view  elsewhere.1  But  the  more  reasonable  Nominalism,  the 
conceptualistic,  is  worthy  of  examination  here.  In  so  far  as  it 
holds  that  the  mind  can  form  a  concept,  which  shall  consist  of 
the  element  or  elements  several  objects  have  in  common,  we 
have  no  quarrel  with  it.  Here  we  find  a  true  universal,  obtained 
by  discarding  differences  which  distinguish  objects  from  one 
another.  We  obtain  by  this  that  mental  core  common  to  several 
similar  mental  objects.  If,  however,  we  distinguish  between 
mental  objects  and  "real"  things  corresponding  to  them,  we  have 
evidently  two  distinct  fields  to  consider.  When  we  say  a  number 
of  objects  in  consciousness  are  alike,  we  are  simply  pointing 
out  the  fact  that  they  contain  a  universal  element  as  well  as 
individual  differences.  Can  we  say  that  a  number  of  "real" 
objects  are  alike  ?  If  so,  what  do  we  mean  in  saying  it  ?  If 

1  See  my  "  Conception  of  the  Infinite,"  Ch.  VI  (J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.,  Philadelphia) .  It 
is  but  fair  to  state  that  my  criticism  of  Realism  in  this  volume  is  directed  against  the  "ante 
rem  "  Realism.  I  did  not  have  the  Moderate  Realism  in  mind,  and  what  I  said  will  not  apply 
to  it. 


95 

there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  calling  them  individuals 
there  would  seem  to  be  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  affirming 
that  they  are  "really"  alike.  Does  likeness  ever  mean  anything 
except  sameness  in  difference?  Is  not,  then,  the  element  in 
which  several  objects  resemble  each  other  a  universal  element, 
whether  the  objects  be  mental  or  "real?"  What  else  does 
universal  mean  ?  The  excuse  for  speaking  ceases  when  language 
ceases  to  be  significant.  One  does  not  in  the  least  explain  the 
similarity,  or  sameness  in  the  fourth  sense,  of  a  number  of 
"real"  objects,  by  assuming  a  universal  in  a  quite  different 
world — one  which  could  not  possibly  exist  in  the  world  of  the 
objects.  This  solution  of  the  problem  is  Platonic.  The  element 
which  twenty  real  objects  have  in  common  must  be  a  "real" 
element,  or  it  cannot  be  a  constituent  part  of  each  object.  If  it 
is  not  a  constituent  part  of  each  object,  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of 
the  objects  as  having  it  in  common.  If  they  have  nothing  in 
common,  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  they  are  alike.  Twenty  similar 
objects  must  have  a  universal  element,  to  whatever  sphere  of 
being  they  belong ;  and  this  element  must  belong  to  the  same 
sphere  as  the  objects.  A  mental  universal  is  the  same  with  a 
"  real "  universal  only  in  sense  seventh,  and  it  can  furnish  no 
explanation  of  the  likeness  of  "real"  things. 

In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  analysis  a  goodly  number  of  the 
scholastic  arguments  regarding  universals  are  easily  seen  to 
contain  errors.  The  Anselmic  view  of  genera  and  species  as 
universal  substances,1  for  instance,  makes  an  abstraction  a  thing 
and  distinguishes  it  from  other  things.  It  fails  to  keep  it 
abstract.  The  doctrine  attributed  to  William  of  Champeaux,  by 
Abelard,  that  universals  are  essentially  and  wholly  present  in 
each  of  their  individuals,  in  which  latter  there  is  no  diversity  of 
essence,  but  only  variety  through  accidents,2  is  tenable  or  not 

1  Haureau.    Philos.  Scholastique.    Paris,  1872.    I,  p.  281. 
~  Historia  Calamitatum,  quoted  by  Haureau.    I,  p.  324. 


96 

according  to  the  sense  in  which  the  words  are  taken.  The  word 
"wholly"  is  an  awkward  one,  and  would  incline  one  to  the  view 
that  William  regarded  the  universal  as  a  thing,  a  concrete,  which 
may  be  in  this  place  or  that.  If  this  were  his  opinion,  and  it  is 
perhaps  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  it  was,  the  objection  of 
Abelard,  that  this  would  necessitate  the  same  thing's  being  in 
different  places  at  the  same  time,  would  hold  good.  If  the 
essence  of  humanity  be  wholly  in  Socrates,  it  must  be  where 
Socrates  is.  It  cannot,  then,  be  somewhere  else  in  Plato. 
Manifestly  humanity,  so  regarded,  is  not  a  universal  at  all.  It 
is  "ttiis  humanity"  or  "that  humanity,"  i.  e.,  this  or  that  occur- 
rence of  humanity ;  and  two  occurrences  of  a  quality  or  group 
of  qualities  are  two  individuals.  The  word  "in"  I  have  shown 
to  be  ambiguous.  Any  element,  regarded  as,  in  one  sense,  in 
an  individual,  retains  the  local  flavor  which  makes  universality 
impossible.  But  if  William  meant  nothing  more  by  his  state- 
ment than  that  the  element  common  to  the  individuals  is  a 
constituent  part  of  each,  and  that  there  is  in  it  no  distinction 
which  will  allow  us  to  put  it  part  here  and  part  there,  the 
polemic  of  Abelard  is  not  justifiable.  Whatever  he  may  have 
intended  to  say,  there  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the  following  sentence  from  Robert  Pulleyn  :  "  The  species  is 
the  whole  substance  of  individuals,  and  the  whole  species  is  the 
same  in  each  individual :  therefore  the  species  is  one  substance, 
but  its  individuals  many  persons,  and  these  many  persons  are 
that  one  substance."1  The  dialectician  represented  as  saying 
this,  ought  to  have  been  a  prey  to  profound  melancholy ;  his 
samenesses  are  clearly  in  deplorable  confusion.  He  makes  his 
universal  an  individual,  and  then  imposes  upon  it  duties  which 

1  Species  est  tota  substantia  indiiiduorum,  totaque  species  eademque  in  singulis  reperi- 
tur  individiiis :  itaqite  species  una  est  substantia,  ejus  vero  individua  multce  Persona,  et 
hce  multcK  persona  sunt  ilia  una  substantia.  (Sentent.,  p.  I,  c.  III.)— Quoted  by  Haureau, 
I,  p.  328. 


97 

no  individual  can  fulfil  with  credit.  It  is  to  be  one  and  yet  not 
one :  distinct  from  something  else,  and  yet  identical  with  it. 
It  is  to  be  a  universal  and  not  a  universal.  It  is  by  no  means 
to  be  envied.  The  conceptualistic  position  of  Abelard,  that  we 
may  gain  a  subjective  universal  by  abstraction,  but  that  only 
individuals  exist  in  reality,  is  open  to  the  objections  that  I 
advanced  in  discussing  Nominalism.  The  position  is  supported1 
by  the  argument  that  we  may  abstract  the  form  from  the  sub- 
stantial subject  to  which  it  is  united,  and  consider  it  separately, 
while  in  nature  there  is  no  such  abstraction,  the  form  and  the 
subject  forming  a  united  whole.  To  this  one  may  answer,  as  I 
have  indicated  above,  that,  whatever  it  may  be  united  with,  the 
form  in  the  several  individuals  is  in  some  sense  the  same,  or  the 
individuals  would  not  be  alike,  and  the  concept  would  be  of  no 
service  in  representing  it.  What  is  meant  by  such  sameness  ?  Is 
it  anything  but  sameness  in  sense  fourth?  When  several  objects 
are  the  same  in  sense  fourth,  is  not  the  element  common  to 
them  a  universal  ?  Why  make  this  conceptualistic  discrimina- 
tion between  things  in  mind  and  "real"  things  ? 

Finally,  in  passing  from  scholasticism,  I  would  suggest  that  it 
is  conducive  to  clearness  in  thinking  to  bear  in  mind  that  when 
Albert,  or  Thomas,  or  Duns,  declares  in  favor  of  all  three  kinds 
of  universal,  ante  rem,  in  re,  and  post  rem,  he  is  declaring  for 
three  things  and  not  one.  He  is  not  at  all  in  the  position  of  the 
old  Platonic  Realist ;  but  is  rather,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  a  kind 
of  triple  Aristotelian.  One  may  perfectly  well  hold  to  all  three 
universals,  by  putting  one  in  the  mind  of  God,  one  in  things,  and 
one  in  a  human  mind ;  but  an  individual  may  be  given  this  three- 
fold existence  quite  as  well  as  a  universal.  In  the  old  Realism 
the  problem  of  the  universal  called  into  existence  a  new  sphere 
of  being.  Here  a  new  sphere  of  being,  assumed  upon  extra- 

1  Haur£au,  I,  380-381.    The  argument  is  taken  from  the  De  Intellectibus. 


98 

neous  grounds,  furnishes  one  more  universal.  The  universals 
in  the  mind  of  God  are  not  assumed  as  the  object  of  the  general 
name  applied  to  twenty  "real"  objects.  The  object  of  this 
name  is  the  in  re.  The  ante  rent  universal  cannot,  then,  be  gotten 
as  Plato  got  it.  In  this  distinction  between  the  different  spheres 
of  being  we  have  an  advance  in  reflection ;  but  as  I  have  said,  on 
this  new  ground  the  individual  may  demand  its  rights.  The 
ante  rem  Realism  of  the  great  scholastics  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury should  not  be  confounded  with  that  of  an  earlier  period. 
It  is  not  open  to  the  same  objections.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
it  has  not  the  same  excuse  for  existence.  It  is  a  historical  relic. 

SEC.  29.  The  first  of  the  moderns  to  whom  I  shall  refer  is 
Descartes.  There  are  certain  passages  in  the  Meditations  which 
will  well  illustrate  the  efforts  made  by  this  remarkable  man  in 
the  direction  of  accurate  analysis,  as  also  the  errors  into  which 
he  fell  through  a  confusion  of  the  kinds  of  sameness.  I  shall 
quote  from  the  second  and  third  Meditations  : 

"  Let  us  now  accordingly  consider  the  things  which  are  com- 
monly thought  the  easiest  of  all  to  know,  and  which  are  thought 
also  to  be  the  most  distinctly  known,  that  is,  the  bodies  that  we 
touch  and  see ;  not  indeed  bodies  in  general,  for  these  general  no- 
tions are  usually  a  little  more  confused :  but  let  us  consider  a 
single  one  of  them.  Let  us  take,  for  example,  this  bit  of  wax ; 
it  has  just  been  taken  from  the  hive ;  it  has  not  yet  lost  the 
sweetness  of  the  honey  it  contained ;  it  still  keeps  something  of 
the  odor  of  the  flowers  from  which  it  has  been  gathered ;  its 
color,  its  figure,  its  size,  are  apparent ;  it  is  hard,  it  is  cold,  it  is 
easily  handled,  and  if  struck  it  gives  a  sound.  In  a  word,  every- 
thing that  can  make  a  body  distinctly  known  is  found  in  this 
one.  But  notice,  while  I  speak,  it  is  placed  near  the  fire  •  what 
remained  «of  savor  and  odor  disappears,  its  color  changes,  its 
figure  is  lost,  its  size  increases,  it  becomes  liquid,  grows  hot,  one 
can  scarcely  handle  it,  and  when  struck  it  no  longer  gives  a 


99 

sound.  Does  the  same  wax  remain  after  this  change?  One 
must  admit  that  it  does  ;  no  one  doubts  it ;  no  one  judges  other- 
wise. What  "then  was  it  that  was  known  with  so  much  distinct- 
ness in  this  bit  of  wax  ?  Certainly  nothing  that  I  perceived  by 
means  of  the  senses,  for  all  the  things  which  fall  under  taste, 
smell,  sight,  touch  and  hearing,  are  changed,  and  yet  the  same 
wax  remains.  Perhaps  it  was  what  I  think  now,  namely,  that 
this  wax  was  neither  the  sweetness  of  honey,  the  agreeable  odor 
of  flowers,  the  whiteness,  the  figure,  nor  the  sound,  but  only  a 
body  which  a  little  before  appeared  to  my  senses  under  these 
forms,  and  which  now  appears  to  them  under  others.  But  to 
speak  precisely,  what  do  I  imagine  when  I  think  it  in  this  way  ? 
Let  us  consider  it  attentively,  and  abstracting  all  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  wax,  let  us  see  what  remains.  Surely  nothing  re- 
mains but  something  extended,  flexible  and  mutable.  But  what 
is  that,  flexible  and  mutable  ?  Is  it  not  that  I  imagine  that  this 
bit  of  wax,  being  round,  is  capable  of  becoming  square  and  of 
changing  from  square  to  triangular  ?  No,  it  is  certainly  not 
that,  for  I  think  it  capable  of  an  infinite  number  of  similar 
changes  ;  but  I  could  not  run  through  this  infinite  number  by 
my  imagination,  and  consequently  this  conception  that  I  have  of 
the  wax  is  not  due  to  the  faculty  of  imagination.  But  what  now 
is  this  extension  ?  Is  it  not  also  unknown  ?  For  it  becomes 
greater  when  the  wax  melts,  greater  when  it  boils,  and  still 
greater  when  the  heat  increases ,  and  I  could  not  conceive  clearly 
and  truly  what  wax  is,  if  I  did  not  think  that  even  this  bit  that  we 
are  considering  is  capable  of  receiving  more  varieties  of  extension 
than  I  have  ever  imagined.  It  must  then  be  admitted  that  I 
could  not  comprehend  by  imagination  even  what  this  bit  of  wax 
is,  and  that  only  my  understanding  can  comprehend  it.  I  say 
this  particular  bit  of  wax ;  for  as  for  wax  in  general,  it  is  still 
more  evident.  But  what  is  this  bit  of  wax  that  cannot  be  com- 
prehended save  by  the  understanding  or  the  mind  ?  It  is  cer- 


100 

tainly  the  same  that  I  see,  that  I  touch,  that  I  imagine ;  it  is,  in 
a  word,  the  same  that  I  have  always  thought  it  from  the  begin- 
ning. But,  what  is  important  to  note  here  is,  that  my  percep- 
tion is  not  a  sensation  of  sight,  nor  of  touch,  nor  an  act  of  the 
imagination,  and  it  has  never  been  this,  although  it  may  have 
seemed  so  before;  but  it  is  merely  an  intuition  (inspection)  of 
the  mind,  which  may  be  imperfect  and  confused  as  it  was  before, 
or  clear  and  distinct  as  it  is  at  present,  according  as  my  atten- 
tion is  directed  more  or  less  to  the  elements  in  it,  and  of  which 
it  is  composed. 

"  However,  I  cannot  be  too  much  surprised  when  I  consider 
the  weakness  of  my  mind  and  its  proneness  to  be  carried  insen- 
sibly into  error.  For  even  when  I  consider  all  this  in  my  own 
mind,  and  without  using  language,  the  words  arrest  me,  and  I 
am  almost  deceived  by  the  terms  in  common  use ;  for  we  say 
that  we  see  the  same  wax  if  it  be  present,  and  not  that  we  judge 
that  it  is  the  same,  from  its  having  the  same  color  and  figure ; 
whence  I  might  be  tempted  to  conclude  that  one  knows  the  wax 
by  the  sight  of  the  eyes,  and  not  merely  by  the  intuition  of  the 
mind,  were  it  not  that,  in  looking  from  a  window  at  men  passing 
in  the  street,  I  say  that  I  see  men,  just  as  I  say  that  I  see  the  wax  ; 
and  yet  what  do  I  see  from  this  window  except  hats  and  cloaks 
which  might  cover  machines  moved  by  springs  ?  But  I  judge  that 
they  are  men,  and  thus  comprehend  only  by  the  power  of  judg- 
ing, which  is  in  my  mind,  what  I  thought  I  saw  with  my  eyes."1 

1  Meditation  Deuxi£xne.— Ed.  Simon,  Paris,  1860,  pp.  76-78. 

In  this  extract  the  author  attempts  to  distinguish  between  what  is  thought  and  what  is 
perceived  by  the  senses  or  imagined.  Had  he  remained  within  the  sphere  of  the  immediately 
known,  one  could  not  have  objected  to  such  a  distinction.  Sameness  in  sense  third  is  some- 
thing highly  complex,  implying  that  elaboration  of  mental  elements  which  we  call  thought. 
It  is  quite  just  to  distinguish  the  notion  "a  bit  of  wax"  from  any  single  sense  experience  or 
picture  of  the  imagination.  In  doing  this  Descartes  was  searching  for  sameness  in  sense 
third.  But  when  he  leaves  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  and  assumes  that  what  remains  the 
same  in  the  bit  of  wax  is  something  distinct  from  the  sum  total  of  experiences,  as  men  are 
distinct  from  their  garments,  he  falls  into  error.  It  is  against  this  that  the  criticism  in  the 
text  is  directed. 


101 

What  Descartes  is  feeling  for  in  this  is  sameness  in  sense 
third.  When  we  use  the  words  "a  bit  of  wax,"  we  do  not  have 
in  mind  a  single  experience.  The  wax  in  a  solid  and  the  wax  in 
a  liquid  state  is  to  us  the  same  wax.  I  have  pointed  out  what 
the  word  same,  so  used,  means.  It  means  that  these  two  expe- 
riences are  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  one  group  or  series  of 
experiences  ;  and  the  wax,  completely  known,  is  the  sum  total  of 
the  series.  Descartes  saw  very  well  that  the  two  experiences 
under  discussion  are  not  strictly  identical  (the  same  in  sense 
first),  and  he  saw  also  that  they  are  very  unlike.  He  naturally 
asked,  In  what  then  are  they  the  same  ?  or,  what  is  there  that  is 
here  the  same  ?  And,  instead  of  accepting  the  fact  that  such  a 
sameness  as  this  cannot  be  reduced  to  one  of  the  others,  he  solved 
the  problem  by  passing  from  the  experiences,  the  "hats  and 
cloaks,"  to  a  "real"  thing  underlying.  In  other  words,  to  ex- 
plain the  sameness  of  two  experiences  of  a  bit  of  wax,  sameness 
in  sense  third,  he  assumed  "real"  wax,  which  is  the  same  with 
the  experiences  which  represent  it  only  in  sense  seventh.  This 
real  wax,  or  something  in  it,  he  supposes  to  remain  the  same  on 
two  occasions.  It  is  this  to  which  he  makes  the  mind  refer  when 
it  calls  the  wax  the  same.  But  when  a  man  advances  statements 
about  a  bit  of  wax,  his  information  rests  ultimately  upon  his  expe- 
ences,  if  it  be  grounded  at  all.  From  the  experience  one  infers 
the  "  real"  thing,  and  not  vice  versa.  No  one  knew  this  better 
than  Descartes,  with  his  fundamental  principle  of  the  certainty 
of  consciousness  and  the  uncertainty  of  what  is  "external."  He 
got  his  "real"  world  by  a  process  of  reasoning,  and  put  it  in  a 
realm  wholly  cut  off  from  direct  observation.  This  being  the 
case,  one  cannot  but  wonder  at  his  inconsistency  in  the  present 
instance.  Is  one  to  remain  in  doubt  whether  a  piece  of  wax  felt 
to  be  hard,  and  then  melted  before  the  fire,  is  the  same,  until  one 
has  had  some  means  of  discovering  that  the  same  "  real"  wax  is 


102 

present  on  the  two  occasions?  How  is  one  to  find  out  whether 
"real"  wax  is  ever  present  unless  he  infer  its  presence  from 
some  experience?  And  how  is  one  to  know  that  the  same 
"  real"  wax  is  present  on  two  occasions  unless  he  infer  it  from 
the  fact  that  what  is  directly  perceived  on  the  two  occasions  is 
the  same  in  some  sense  of  the  word  ?  Whatever  sameness  there 
is  rests  ultimately  for  its  evidence  upon  the  experiences.  There 
is  nothing  else  to  judge  from.  The  reasoning,  which  would  base 
the  sameness  of  what  is  experienced  upon  the  sameness  of  a 
corresponding  "real  "  thing,  when  the  sameness  of  this  latter  is 
to  be  inferred  from  the  former,  reminds  one  of  the  stupid  argu- 
ment, still  occasionally  met  with,  which  would  infer  a  God  from 
data  of  consciousness,  and  then  found  a  belief  in  the  veracity  of 
consciousness  upon  the  goodness  of  God.  One  may  believe,  if 
one  please,  that,  when  we  have  two  distinct  experiences  so  con- 
nected that  we  call  them  two  perceptions  of  the  same  wax,  there 
is  in  some  way  connected  with  them  a  bit  of  "  real  "  wax  which 
remains  in  some  sense  the  same.  But  one  should  never  suppose 
that  any  given  experienced  wax  is  proved  the  same  by  reference 
to  this.  It  is  judged  the  same  upon  observation. 

Descartes  then  was  inconsistent  with  his  own  principles  when 
he  made  this  jump  to  a  new  sphere  of  being.  The  sameness  of 
the  experienced  object  is  ultimate  ;  the  only  pertinent  question 
is,  what  does  it  mean  ?  It  means,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  wax 
hard  and  the  wax  soft  are  the  same  in  sense  third.  But  same- 
ness in  sense  third  admits  of  wide  dissimilarities  in  the  expe- 
riences it  unites  into  the  notion  of  the  one  object.  Descartes 
looked  for  a  sameness  without  these  dissimilarities.  He  would 
reduce  sense  third  to  sense  first,  or,  perhaps,  to  sense  second- 
To  do  this  he  must  go  behind  the  experiences  to  a  "  real  "  thing, 
which  is  to  remain  the  same  as  a  proxy  for  what  is  evidently 
variable.  This  makeshift  is  only  satisfactory  to  one  who  over- 


103 

looks,  or  allows  to  fall  into  the  background,  the  plain  fact  that 
representative  and  thing  represented  are  two  separate  things 
and  not  to  be  confused  ;  that  is,  who  confuses  sameness  in  sense 
first  with  sameness  in  sense  seventh.  Descartes  distinguished 
carefully  between  ideas  and  external  things,  but  he  sometimes 
overlooked  the  distinction.  "  But  what  is  this  bit  of  wax  that 
cannot  be  comprehended  save  by  the  understanding  or  the  mind  ? 
It  is  certainly  the  same  that  I  see,  that  I  touch,  that  I  imagine ; 
it  is,  in  a  word,  the  same  that  I  have  always  thought  it  from  the 
beginning."  How  ambiguous !  is  it  the  same  in  sense  first  or 
sense  seventh  ?  The  sentence  following  would  indicate  sense 
seventh,  but  the  spirit  of  the  whole  discussion  would  argue  for 
sense  first.  One  must  delude  oneself  into  believing  that  one  can 
get  at  "real "  wax  directly,  in  some  way  or  other,  or  one  cannot 
think  of  making  it  an  ultimate  ground  of  reasoning.  Descartes, 
like  so  many  others,  would  seem  to  have  vibrated  between  a 
clear  consciousness  that  ideas  and  "  real "  things  are  distinct, 
belonging  to  different  worlds,  and  a  confused  belief  that  they 
belong  to  the  one  world,  and  that  "real"  things  are  open  to 
direct  observation. 

I  shall  take  still  another  extract  from  this  author.  It  contains 
similar  errors. 

"  Now,  among  these  ideas,  some  appear  to  me  to  be  inborn, 
others  to  be  foreign  and  to  come  from  without,  and  still  others 
to  be  made  and  invented  by  myself.  For,  as  to  the  faculty  of 
conceiving  that  which,  in  general,  one  calls  a  thing,  or  a  truth, 
or  a  thought,  it  appears  to  me  that  I  do  not  get  that  from  any 
other  source  than  my  own  nature ;  but  if  now  I  hear  a  sound,  if 
I  see  the  sun,  if  I  feel  the  heat,  up  to  the  present  I  have  judged 
that  these  sensations  proceed  from  things  which  exist  without 
me ;  and  lastly,  it  seems  to  me  that  syrens,  hippogriffs,  and  all 
similar  chimeras  are  fictions  and  inventions  of  my  mind.  But 


104 

perhaps  I  can  persuade  myself,  that  all  these  ideas  belong  to  the 
class  of  those  that  I  call  foreign,  and  that  come  to  me  from  with- 
out, or  that  they  are  all  innate,  or  else  that  they  are  all  created 
by  myself;  for  I  have  not  yet  clearly  discovered  their  true 
source.  And  my  chief  duty  here  is  to  consider,  touching  those 
which  seem  to  come  from  objects  without  me,  what  reasons  I 
have  for  thinking  them  like  their  objects. 

"  The  first  of  the  reasons  is  that  I  seem  to  be  taught  to  do  so 
by  nature ;  and  the  second,  that  I  perceive  that  these  ideas  are 
not  dependent  upon  my  will ;  for  often  they  present  themselves 
to  me  in  spite  of  me,  as  now,  whether  I  wish  it  or  not,  I  feel 
heat,  and  consequently  am  persuaded  that  this  sensation  or  idea 
of  heat  is  produced  in  me  by  something  different  from  me,  to 
wit :  by  the  heat  of  the  fire  by  which  I  am  sitting.  And  I  can- 
not see  that  anything  is  more  reasonable  than  to  judge  that  this 
external  object  emits  and  impresses  upon  me  its  resemblance 
rather  than  anything  else. 

"  Now  I  must  see  if  these  reasons  are  sufficiently  strong  and 
convincing.  When  I  say  that  I  seem  to  be  taught  so  by  nature, 
I  mean  merely  by  this  word  nature  a  certain  inclination  which 
leads  me  to  believe  it,  and  not  a  natural  light  which  gives  me 
certain  knowledge  that  it  is  true.  But  these  two  ways  of  speak- 
ing are  very  different,  for  I  cannot  doubt  anything  that  the 
natural  light  shows  me  to  be  true,  as  it  has  just  shown  me  that 
from  the  fact  of  my  doubting  I  may  infer  my  existence ;  inas- 
much as  I  have  not  in  me  any  other  faculty  or  power  of  distin- 
guishing the  true  from  the  false  to  teach  me  that  what  this  light 
shows  me  to  be  true  is  not  true,  and  in  which  I  may  have  as 
much  confidence  as  in  it.  But  as  concerns  inclinations  which 
also  seem  to  me  natural,  I  have  often  remarked,  when  it  has  been 
a  question  of  choice  between  virtues  and  vices,  that  they  do  not 
less  incline  to  evil  than  to  good  ;  it  follows  that  I  have  no  more 


IDS 

reason  to  follow  them  when  the  true  and  the  false  are  in  ques- 
tion. And  as  for  the  other  reason,  which  is  that  these  ideas 
must  come  from  without,  since  they  are  not  dependent  on  my 
will,  I  do  not  find  it  more  convincing.  For  while  these  inclina- 
tions of  which  I  have  just  spoken  are  in  me,  notwithstanding 
that  they  are  not  always  in  harmony  with  my  will,  perhaps  there 
is  in  me  some  faculty  or  power  capable  of  producing  these  ideas 
without  the  aid  of  external  things,  although  it  is  yet  unknown 
to  me ;  as  indeed  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  up  to  this  time  that 
when  I  sleep  they  are  thus  formed  in  me  without  the  aid  of  the 
objects  they  represent.  Finally,  even  should  I  admit  that  they 
are  caused  by  these  objects,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that 
they  must  be  like  them.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  often  remarked 
in  many  instances,  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between  an 
object  and  its  idea:  as,  for  example,  I  find  in  me  two  very  dif- 
ferent ideas  of  the  stin ;  the  one  has  its  source  in  the  senses, 
and  should  be  placed  in  the  class  of  those  which  I  have  said 
above  come  from  without,  and  from  this  it  seems  to  me  very 
small ;  the  other  has  it  origin  in  astronomical  reasonings,  that  is 
to  say,  in  certain  notions  which  are  inborn,  or  else  formed  in 
some  way  or  other  by  myself,  and  from  this  it  seems  to  me  many 
times  greater  than  the  whole  earth.  Surely,  these  two  ideas 
which  I  have  of  the  sun  cannot  both  be  like  the  same  sun ;  and 
reason  convinces  me  that  the  one  which  is  derived  directly  from 
its  appearance  is  the  one  which  is  most  unlike  it.  All  of 
which  proves  to  me  that,  up  to  this  hour,  it  has  not  been  by  a 
sure  and  premeditated  judgment,  but  merely  by  a  blind  and  rash 
impulse,  that  I  have  been  led  to  believe  that  there  are  things 
without  me,  and  different  from  my  being,  which,  by  the  organs 
of  my  senses,  or  by  whatever  other  means,  convey  to  me  their 
ideas  or  images,  and  impress  upon  me  their  resemblances."1 

1  Meditation  Troisieme,  pp.  83-85. 


io6 

From  the  earlier  portions  of  this  extract  one  may  see  how 
clearly  Descartes  distinguished  between  the  idea,  or  the  thing 
immediately  known,  and  the  external  thing  which  he  assumed 
as  corresponding  to  the  idea ;  from  the  latter  part  one  may  see 
how  he  sometimes  confounded  them.  He  finds  that  he  may 
doubt  whether  ideas  have  any  external  correlatives  ;  and,  grant- 
ing that  they  have,  whether  the  two  resemble  each  other  at  all. 
All  this  would  imply  that  "external "  things  are  completely  cut  off 
from  observation.  And  yet  he  states  with  naivete  that  he  has 
"  often  remarked  in  many  instances  that  there  is  a  great  dif- 
ference between  an  object  and  its  idea."  Now,  if  this  can 
really  be  remarked  in  many  instances,  the  doubt  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  objects  would  seem  to  be  groundless.  How  can  it  be 
remarked  ?  On  this  point  Descartes  is  silent.  He  has  evidently 
fallen  back  upon  the  popular  notion  that  under  favorable  circum- 
stances one  can  get  a  look  at  a  "real"  thing,  just  as  it  is.  The 
"  reason"  which  convinces  him  that  the  astronomer's  notion  of 
the  sun  is  the  true  notion  is  nothing  but  this.  It  could  certainly 
not  be  deduced  from  his  only  argument  for  the  existence  of 
external  things — the  veracity  of  God.  How  does  he  know,  that 
in  giving  us  several  different  ideas  of  the  sun,  God  has  chosen 
to  have  this  one  only  resemble  it  ?  It  is  a  pure  assumption. 
Reason  is  of  service  when  one  has  something  to  go  upon  ;  but 
in  the  absence  of  premises  it  will  not  carry  one  far.  This 
assumption  is  an  illustration  of  what  I  had  occasion  to  remark 
upon  in  criticizing  Pyrrho  ;  of  the  fact  that,  from  the  series  of  pos- 
sible perceptions  which  we  group  together  as  one  object,  we  are 
apt  to  select  one,  to  us  for  some  reason  the  most  satisfactory 
one,  and  to  regard  it  as  more  truly  representing  the  object  than 
the  others.  Descartes  has  followed  this  impulse,  and  made  this 
perception  the  best  representative  of  the  "real"  object.  Had 
he  always  distinguished  sameness  in  sense  first  from  sameness 


in  sense  seventh,  he  would  have  seen  how  purely  gratuitous  is 
his  assumption. 

The  statement,  too,  that  two  different  ideas  of  the  sun  cannot 
both  resemble  the  same  sun,  shows  how  little  he  comprehended 
what  it  meant  by  the  word  same  when  used  in  the  third  sense. 
If  by  the  sun  we  mean  a  whole  series  of  possible  perceptions, 
perhaps  quite  unlike  each  other,  but  all  united  and  related  in 
certain  ways,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  very  dissimilar  things 
from  being  like  the  same  sun.  Each  of  them  need  only  resemble 
a  single  link  in  the  series.  By  the  words  "the  same  sun" 
Descartes  meant  the  same  in  sense  first,  but  this  sins  against 
the  proper  meaning  of  the  term.  The  difficulty  is  self-created. 

Descartes'  sun  reminds  me  of  Berkeley's  moon.  This  latter 
writer  clearly  perceived  that  there  may  be  multiplicity  and  diver- 
sity where  one  attributes  sameness  in  sense  third.  Note  the 
following : 

"  But  for  a  fuller  explication  of  this  point,  and  to  show  that 
the  immediate  objects  of  sight  are  not  so  much  as  the  ideas  or 
resemblances  of  things  placed  at  a  distance,  it  is  requisite  that 
we  look  nearer  into  the  matter,  and  carefully  observe  what  is 
meant  in  common  discourse  when  one  says  that  which  he  sees 
is  at  a  distance  from  him.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  looking  at 
the  moon  I  should  say  it  were  fifty  or  sixty  semidiameters  of  the 
earth  distant  from  me.  Let  us  see  what  moon  this  is  spoken  of. 
It  is  plain  it  cannot  be  the  visible  moon,  or  anything  like  the 
visible  moon,  or  that  I  see — which  is  only  a  round,  luminous 
plain,  of  about  thirty  visible  points  in  diameter.  For,  in  case  I 
am  carried  from  the;  place  where  I  stand  directly  toward  the 
moon,  it  is  manifest  the  object  varies  still  as  I  go  on  ;  and,  by 
the  time  that  I  am  advanced  fifty  or  sixty  semidiameters  of  the 
earth,  I  shall  be  so  far  from  being  near  a  small,  round,  luminous 
flat  that  I  shall  perceive  nothing  like  it — this  object  having  long 


108 

since  disappeared,  and,  if  I  would  recover  it,  it  must  be  by  going; 
back  to  the  earth  from  whence  I  set  out."  l 

So  much  for  dissimilar  experiences  of  the  same  object.  And 
Berkeley  is  not  impelled  to  assume  an  external  something  to 
explain  how  the  object  can  be  the  same  under  the  circumstances. 
The  case,  he  finds,  stands  thus : 

"  Having  of  a  long  time  experienced  certain  ideas  perceivable 
by  touch — as  distance,  tangible  figure,  and  solidity — to  have  been, 
connected  with  certain  ideas  of  sight,  I  do,  upon  perceiving  these 
ideas  of  sight,  forthwith  conclude  what  tangible  ideas  are,  by  the 
wonted  ordinary  course  of  nature,  like  to  follow.  Looking  at 
an  object,  I  perceive  a  certain  visible  figure  and  color,  with  some 
degree  of  faintness  and  other  circumstances,  which,  from  what  I 
have  formerly  observed,  determine  me  to  think  that  if  I  advance 
forward  so  many  paces,  miles,  etc.,  I  shall  be  affected  with  such 
and  such  ideas  of  touch."2 

And  need  one  ask  a  clearer  illustration  of  sameness  in  sense 
third  than  the  case  of  the  coach,  which  occurs  in  the  following 
section : 

"  Sitting  in  my  study  I  hear  a  coach  drive  along  the  street ;  I 
look  through  the  casement  and  see  it ;  I  walk  out  and  enter  into 
it.  Thus,  common  speech  would  incline  one  to  think  I  heard,  saw, 
and  touched  the  same  thing,  to  wit,  the  coach.  It  is,  nevertheless, 
certain  the  ideas  intromitted  by  each  sense  are  widely  different 
and  distinct  from  each  other ;  but,  having  been  observed  con- 
stantly to  go  together,  they  are  spoken  of  as  one  and  the  same 
thing." 

SEC.  30.  It  would  be  easy  to  select  from  Spinoza,  that  master 
of  reasonings  apparently  very  exact  but  really  very  loose,  many 
good  instances  of  confused  samenesses.  I  shall  confine  myself 

111  Essay  towards  a  New  Theory  of  Vision."     Sec.  44.     Works:  ed.  Fraser.     Oxford 
1871.    Vol.  I,  p.  53. 
.,  §45. 


log 

to  a  single  one,  his  argument  to  prove  that  every  substance  is 
necessarily  infinite.  It  is  the  eighth  proposition  in  Part  I  of  the 
Ethics. 

"  There  cannot  be  more  than  one  substance  with  the  same 
attribute,  and  this  exists  of  its  own  nature.  ,  It  belongs,  then,  to 
its  nature  to  exist  either  as  finite  or  as  infinite.  But  it  cannot  be 
finite,  for  then  it  would  have  to  be  limited  by  another  of.  the  same 
kind,  which  would  also  necessarily  exist ;  there  would  then  be 
two  substances  with  the  same  attribute,  which  is  absurd.  It  is, 
therefore,  infinite."1 

Among  its  defects  this  argument  includes  a  confusion  of  same- 
ness in  sense  fourth  with  sameness  in  sense  first.  Attribute 
Spinoza  has  defined  as  that  which  is  conceived  as  the  essence  of 
substance.  Mode  is  a  modification  of  substance.  Two  sub- 
stances, he  has  argued,  cannot  be  distinguished  from  each  other 
by  their  modifications,  for  substance  is  prior  to  its  modifications, 
and  we  may  set  these  aside  and  consider  it  as  it  is  in  itself.  Sub- 
stances cannot  then,  be  distinguished  except  by  their  attributes  ; 
and  if  the  attribute  be  the  same,  how  can  we  say  that  there  are 
two  substances  ?  There  cannot,  consequently,  be  two  substances 
with  the  same  attribute. 

But,  the  argument  continues,  since  there  cannot  be  two  sub- 
stances with  the  same  attribute,  every  substance  must  be  infinite  ; 
for,  to  be  finite,  a  thing  must  be  limited  by  something :  and  noth- 
ing can  be  limited  except  by  a  thing  of  the  same  kind  (for  ex- 
ample, a  material  thing  cannot  be  limited  by  a  thought).  But  if 
a  thing  be  limited  by  another  thing  of  the  same  kind,  the  thing 
limited  and  the  thing  limiting  have  the  same  attribute.  It  fol- 

1  Substantia  unius  attributi  non  nisi  unica  existit,  et  adipsius  naturampertinet  existere. 
Erit  ergo  de  ipsius  natura  -velfinita  vel  infinita  existere.  At  non  finita.  Nam  deberet  term- 
.inari  ab  alia  eiusdem  natures,  quce  etiam  necessario  deberet  existere;  adeoque  darentur 
duce  substantia  eiusdem  attributi,  quod  est  absurdum.  Existit  ergo  infinita;  q.  e.  d. — 
Ethices,  Pars  prima;  VIII.  Omnis  substantia  est  necessario  infinita.  Leipzig,  1875,  P-  84. 


no 

lows  that  they  are  not  two  things,  but  one.     The  thing  in  ques- 
tion is  not  limited  but  infinite. 

In  criticizing  this,  I  may  call  attention,  in  passing,  to  the 
highly  disputable  and  gratuitously  assumed  premise,  that,  to  be 
finite,  a  thing  must  be  limited  by  something.  If  this  be  denied, 
the  ground  of  the  reasoning  is  removed ;  while,  if  it  be  granted, 
no  argument  is  needed  to  prove  that  something  is  infinite,  for  one 
has  only  said  in  other  words  that  all  limits  must  be  limits  within 
something.  The  question  is  begged  at  once.  With  this,  how- 
ever, I  am  not  concerned.  What  interests  me  is  this :  The  argu- 
ment assumes  a  limited  thing  and  a  something  beyond  it,  and 
then  asserts  that  they  are  one.  But  two  things  of  the  same  kind 
in  different  places,  or  marked  as  different  by  distinctions  of  any 
sort,  are  readily  distinguished  as  two.  To  come  to  the  concrete, 
extension  conceived  as  on  this  side  of  a  point  and  extension  con- 
ceived as  beyond  the  point  are  not  extension  simply,  but  "this" 
extension  and  "that"  extension.  They  are  the  same  only  in 
sense  fourth,  not  in  sense  first.  We  have  here  not  merely  the 
attribute  extension,  but  the  further  elements  "this"  and  "that." 
The  conclusion,  then,  that  what  we  started  out  with  is  infinite, 
is  wholly  unwarranted.  It  is  not  this  that  is  infinite,  but  this 
with  something  else  which  is  to  some  degree  like  it,  although 
not  wholly  so.  That  is  to  say,  the  thing  assumed  as  finite  can 
only  be  proved  to  be  infinite  by  confounding  two  samenesses. 
The  thing  proved  to  be  infinite  is  a  new  object  including  it  and 
what  it  is  assumed  to  presuppose.  If  it  be  not  permissible  to  make 
this  distinction  between  the  object  assumed  as  finite,  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument,  and  the  object  which  is  proved  to  be  infi- 
nite, it  is  also  not  permissible  to  assert  that  an  object  to  be 
finite,  "would  have  to  be  limited  by  another  of  the  same  kind." 
If  the  two  are  one,  these  words  are  meaningless.  If  they  are  not 
one,  one  cannot  conclude  from  the  argument  that  every  sub- 


Ill 

stance  is  necessarily  infinite,  but  only  that  something  is  neces- 
sarily infinite,  a  conclusion  already  given  in  the  single  premise 
that  what  is  limited  must  be  limited  by  something  of  the  same 
kind.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Spinoza  retains  in  his  argument 
not  only  the  attribute,  but  the  mode,  the  "this"  and  the  " be- 
yond this ; "  and  then  he  overlooks  the  mode  and  considers 
merely  the  attribute,  which  gives  him  strict  identity.  This  pro- 
cedure we  have  met  before  in  the  dispute  concerning  universals. 

SEC.  31.  In  the  former  part  of  my  monograph  I  have  men- 
tioned Locke's  confusion  of  sameness  in  sense  seventh  with 
sameness  in  sense  first.  I  shall  now  quote  a  few  sections  from 
the  "  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding"  to  show  how 
significant  his  error  is,  and  to  what  an  extent  it  is  responsible 
for  his  position  regarding  ideas,  things,  and  substance.  My 
extracts  are  from  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  fourth  book, 
entitled  "  Of  our  Knowledge  of  the  Existence  of  Other  Things." 
Locke  argues  as  follows  : * 

"The  knowledge  of  our  own  being  we  have  by  intuition. 
The  existence  of  a  God  reason  clearly  makes  known  to  us,  as 
has  been  shown. 

"  The  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  any  other  thing  we  can 
have  only  by  sensation  :  for  there  being  no  necessary  connection 
of  real  existence  with  any  idea  a  man  hath  in  his  memory,  nor 
of  any  other  existence  but  that  of  God,  with  the  existence  of 
any  particular  man ;  no  particular  man  can  know  the  existence 
of  any  other  being,  but  only  when  by  actual  operating  upon  him 
it  makes  itself  perceived  by  him.  For  the  having  the  idea  of 
anything  in  our  mind  no  more  proves  the  existence  of  that  thing, 
than  the  picture  of  a  man  evidences  his  being  in  the  world,  or 
the  visions  of  a  dream  make  thereby  a  true  history. 

"  It  is  therefore  the  actual  receiving  of  ideas  from  without, 
that  gives  us  notice  of  the  existence  of  other  things,  and  makes 

1  Locke's  Essays,  Philadelphia,  1846,  p.  415,  et  seq. 


112 

us  Know  that  something  doth  exist  at  that  time  without  us, 
which  causes  that  idea  in  us,  though  perhaps  we  neither  know 
nor  consider  how  it  does  it :  for  it  takes  not  from  the  certainty 
of  our  senses,  and  the  ideas  we  receive  by  them,  that  we  know 
not  the  manner  wherein  they  are  produced,  v.  g.y  whilst  I  write 
this  I  have,  by  the  paper  affecting  my  eyes,  that  idea  produced 
in  my  mind  which,  whatever  object  causes,  I  call  white  ;  by  which 
I  know 'that  that  quality  or  accident  (i.  e.,  whose  appearance 
before  my  eyes  always  causes  that  idea)  doth  really  exist,  and 
hath  a  being  without  me.  And  of  this,  the  greatest  assurance  I 
can  possibly  have,  and  to  which  my  faculties  can  attain,  is  the 
testimony  of  my  eyes,  which  are  the  proper  and  sole  judges  of 
this  thing,  whose  testimony  I  have  reason  to  rely  on  as  so  cer- 
tain, that  I  can  no  more  doubt,  whilst  I  write  this,  that  I  see 
white  and  black,  and  that  something  really  exists  that  causes  that 
sensation  in  me,  than  that  I  write  or  move  my  hand :  which  is  a 
certainty  as  great  as  human  nature  is  capable  of,  concerning  the 
existence  of  anything  but  a  man's  self  alone,  and  of  God. 

"The  notice  we  have  by  our  senses  of  the  existing  of  things 
without  us,  though  it  be  not  altogether  so  certain  as  our  intui- 
tive knowledge,  or  the  deductions  of  our  reason,  employed  about 
the  clear  abstract  ideas  of  our  own  minds  ;  yet  it  is  an  assurance 
that  deserves  the  name  of  knowledge.  If  we  persuade  ourselves 
that  our  faculties  act  and  inform  us  right,  concerning  the  exist- 
ence of  those  objects  that  affect  them,  it  cannot  pass  for  an 
ill-grounded  confidence :  for  I  think  nobody  can,  in  earnest,  be 
so  sceptical  as  to  be  uncertain  of  the  existence  of  those  things 
which  he  sees  and  feels.  At  least,  he  that  can  doubt  so  far 
(whatever  he  may  have  with  his  own  thoughts)  will  never  have 
any  controversy  with  me ;  since  he  can  never  be  sure  I  say  any- 
thing contrary  to  his  own  opinion.  As  to  myself,  I  think  God 
has  given  me  assurance  enough  of  the  existence  of  things  with- 


H3 

out  me ;  since  by  their  different  application  I  can  produce  in 
myself  both  pleasure  and  pain,  which  is  one  great  concernment 
of  my  present  state.  This  is  certain,  the  confidence  that  our 
faculties  do  not  herein  deceive  us  is  the  greatest  assurance  we 
are  capable  of,  concerning  the  existence  of  material  beings.  For 
we  cannot  act  anything  but  by  our  faculties  ;  nor  talk  of  knowl- 
edge itself,  but  by  the  helps  of  those  faculties  which  are  fitted 
to  apprehend  even  what  knowledge  is.  But  besides  the  assur- 
ance we  have  from  our  senses  themselves,  that  they  do  not  err 
in  the  information  they  give  us,  of  the  existence  of  things  with- 
out us,  when  they  are  affected  by  them,  we  are  farther  confirmed 
in  this  assurance  by  other  concurrent  reasons. 

"First,  it  is  plain  those  perceptions  are  produced  in  us  by 
exterior  causes  affecting  our  senses  :  because  those  that  want  the 
organs  of  any  sense  never  can  have  the  ideas  belonging  to  that 
sense  produced  in  their  minds.  This  is  too  evident  to  be  doubted  : 
and  therefore  we  cannot  but  be  assured  that  they  come  in  by 
the  organs  of  that  sense,  and  no  other  way.  The  organs  them- 
selves, it  is  plain,  do  not  produce  them ;  for  then  the  eyes  of  a 
man  in  the  dark  would  produce  colors,  and  his  nose  smell  roses 
in  the  winter  :  but  we  see  nobody  gets  the  relish  of  a  pine  apple 
till  he  goes  to  the  Indies,  where  it  is,  and  tastes  it. 

"  Secondly,  because  sometimes  I  find  that  I  cannot  avoid  the 
having  those  ideas  produced  in  my  mind.  For  though  when  my 
eyes  are  shut,  or  windows  fast,  I  can  at  pleasure  recall  to  my 
mind  the  ideas  of  light,  or  the  sun,  which  former  sensations  had 
lodged  in  my  memory ;  so  I  can  at  pleasure  lay  by  that  idea,  and 
take  into  my  view  that  of  the  smell  of  a  rose,  or  taste  of  sugar. 
But  if  I  turn  my  eyes  at  noon  towards  the  sun,  I  cannot  avoid 
the  ideas  which  the  light,  or  sun,  then  produces  in  me.  So  that 
there  is  a  manifest  difference  between  the  ideas  laid  up  in  my 
memory  (over  which,  if  they  were  there  only,  I  should  have 


114 

constantly  the  same  power  to  dispose  of  them,  and  lay  them  by 
at  pleasure),  and  those  which  force  themselves  upon  me,  and  I 
cannot  avoid  having.  And  therefore  it  must  needs  be  some 
exterior  cause,  and  the  brisk  acting  of  some  objects  without  me, 
whose  efficacy  I  cannot  resist,  that  produces  those  ideas  in  my 
mind,  whether  I  will  or  no.  Besides,  there  is  nobody  who  doth 
not  perceive  the  difference  in  himself  between  contemplating 
the  sun,  as  he  hath  the  idea  of  it  in  his  memory,  and  actually 
looking  upon  it ;  of  which  two  his  perception  is  so  distinct,  that 
few  of  his  ideas  are  more  distinguishable  one  from  another. 
And  therefore,  he  hath  certain  knowledge,  that  they  are  not  both 
memory,  or  the  actions  of  his  mind,  and  fancies  only  within 
him ;  but  that  actual  seeing  hath  a  cause  without. 

"  Thirdly,  add  to  this,  that  many  of  those  ideas  are  produced 
in  us  with  pain,  which  afterward  we  remember  without  the  least 
offense.  Thus  the  pain  of  heat  or  cold,  when  the  idea  of  it  is 
revived  in  our  minds,  gives  us  no  disturbance  ;  which,  when  felt, 
was  very  troublesome,  and  is  again  when  actually  repeated  ; 
which  is  occasioned  by  the  disorder  the  external  object  causes 
in  our  bodies  when  applied  to  it.  And  we  remember  the  pains 
of  hunger,  thirst,  or  the  headache,  without  any  pain  at  all ;  which 
would  either  never  disturb  us,  or  else  constantly  do  it,  as  often 
as  we  thought  of  it,  were  there  nothing  more  but  ideas  floating 
in  our  minds,  and  appearances  entertaining  our  fancies,  without 
the  real  existence  of  things  affecting  us  from  abroad.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  pleasure  accompanying  several  actual  sensations, 
and  though  mathematical  demonstrations  depend  not  upon 
sense,  yet  the  examining  them  by  diagrams  gives  great  credit  to 
the  evidence  of  our  sight,  and  seems  to  give  it  a  certainty 
approaching  to  that  of  demonstration  itself.  For  it  would  be 
very  strange  that  a  man  should  allow  it  for  an  undeniable  truth, 
that  two  angles  of  a  figure,  which  he  measures  by  lines  and 


angles  of  a  diagram,  should  be  bigger  one  than  the  other  ;  and  yet 
doubt  of  the  existence  of  those  lines  and  angles,  which  by  look- 
ing on  he  makes  use  of  to  measure  that  by. 

"  Fourthly,  our  senses  in  many  cases  bear  witness  to  the  truth 
of  each  other's  report,  concerning  the  existence  of  sensible 
things  without  us.  He  that  sees  a  fire  may,  if  he  doubt  whether 
it  be  anything  more  than  a  bare  fancy,  feel  it  too;  and  be  con- 
vinced by  putting  his  hand  in  it :  which  certainly  could  never  be 
put  into  such  exquisite  pain  by  a  bare  idea  or  phantom,  unless 
that  the  pain  be  a  fancy  too,  which  yet  he  cannot,  when  the 
burn  is  well,  by  raising  the  idea  of  it,  bring  upon  himself  again. 

"  Thu§  I  see,  whilst  I  write  this,  I  can  change  the  appearance 
of  the  paper  :  and  by  designing  the  letters  tell  beforehand  what 
new  idea  it  shall  exhibit  the  very  next  moment,  by  barely  draw- 
ing my  pen  over  it :  which  will  neither  appear  (let  me  fancy  as 
much  as  I  will),  if  my  hands  stand  still ;  or  though  I  move  my 
pen,  if  my  eyes  be  shut :  nor,  when  those  characters  are  once 
made  on  the  paper,  can  I  choose  afterward  but  see  them  as  they 
are  :  that  is,  have  the  ideas  of  such  letters  as  I  have  made- 
Whence  it  is  manifest,  that  they  are  not  barely  the  sport  and 
play  of  my  own  imagination,  when  I  find  that  the  characters  that 
were  made  at  the  pleasure  of  my  own  thought,  do  not  obey  them  ; 
nor  yet  cease  to  be,  whenever  I  shall  fancy  it ;  but  continue  to 
affect  the  senses  constantly  and  regularly,  according  to  the 
figures  I  made  them.  To  which  if  we  will  add,  that  the  sight  of 
those  shall,  from  another  man,  draw  such  sounds  as  I  beforehand 
design  they  shall  stand  for ;  there  will  be  little  reason  left  to 
doubt  that  those  words  I  write  do  really  exist  without  me,  when 
they  cause  a  long  series  of  regular  sounds  to  affect  my  ears, 
which  could  not  be  the  effect  of  my  imagination,  nor  could  my 
memory  retain  them  in  that  order." 

This  is  quite  a  long  citation,  but  I  have  given  it  at  length 
because  it  may  stand  as  the  type  of  by  far  the  greater  part  of 


the  objections  urged  against  Idealism,  and  because  a  better 
instance  of  the  confusion  of  two  samenesses  could  scarcely  be 
desired.  Notice  how  constantly  it  is  assumed  that  the  thing 
given  in  perception  is  the  "  real  "  thing,  a  thing  which  is,  never- 
theless, characterized  as  distinct  from,  and  the  cause  of,  the  idea. 

At  the  outset  Locke  distinguishes  well  enough  between  the 
idea  and  the  "external "  thing.  The  having  the  idea  of  any  thing 
in  the  mind,  he  declares,  no  more  proves  the  existence  of  that 
thing  than  the  picture  of  a  man  evidences  his  being  in  the  world 
It  is  only  the  receiving  of  ideas  from  without  that  gives  us  notice 
of  things  as  causes  of  the  ideas.  It  would  seem  quite  fair  here 
to  ask  how  we  know  that  some  ideas  come  from  without  ?  Of 
course,  if  the  realm  of  the  "without  "  were  open  to  inspection, 
the  question  could  be  answered  at  once.  But  it  is  not  open  to 
inspection — certainly  not  to  a  consistent  Lockian.  How,  then, 
may  I  distinguish  ideas  coming  from  without  from  other  ideas  ? 
No  ideas  are  perceived  until  they  are  what  Locke  would  call 
"within." 

The  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  the  eyes  needs  examination^ 
To  what  eyes  does  one  appeal  ?  The  immediately  known  or 
idea-eyes,  or  the  "  external  "  organs  whose  existence  is  the  mat- 
ter of  dispute  ?  Surely  not  to  the  last,  for  it  is  only  as  a  result 
of  the  argument  that  we  may  assume  these  at  all.  And  what 
hand  is  it  so  certain  that  I  move  in  writing  ?  The  complex  of 
ideas  immediately  known,  or  the  something  beyond,  whose  exist- 
ence is  to  be  established  ?  If  it  be  the  latter,  all  discussion  is 
unnecessary.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  eyes  and  the  hand  con- 
cerned are  ideas,  it  is  not  clear  how  the  appeal  to  them  can  be  of 
any  service.  Does  a  sense  give  anything  but  sensations  ?  And 
if  the  very  sense  organ  as  immediately  known  be  a  group  of  sen- 
sations, how  can  the  testimony  of  a  sense  land  one  in  a  world 
beyond  that  of  sensations  ?  And  the  argument  that  God  has 


given  me  assurance  of  the  existence  of  things  without  me,  since 
by  applying  them  to  myself  I  can  produce  in  myself  pain  and 
pleasure,  presupposes  that  I  can  apply  such  things  to  myself  and 
know  that  I  am  doing  so.  If  this  be  the  fact,  it  is  trifling  to  dis- 
cuss whether  things  I  move  to  and  fro  exist.  If,  however,  it  is 
still  to  be  proved  that  there  are  such  things,  and  that  they  are 
moved  to  and  fro,  the  argument  is  wholly  baseless.  Locke  here 
makes  appeal  to  the  common  experience  that  certain  objects 
applied  to  the  body  cause  pleasure,  and  certain  others  pain  ;  a 
fact  which  no  reasonable  man  would  think  of  denying  or  ques- 
tioning, as  it  is  matter  of  daily  observation.  But  in  such  experi- 
ences, all  that  is  immediately  evident  is  that  an  object  imme- 
diately perceived  (Locke's  idea)  is  applied  to  another  object 
immediately  perceived  (idea)  with  a  resulting  (idea)  pain. 
Whether  or  not  certain  duplicates  of  the  things  immediately 
known  are  brought  into  a  peculiar  conjunction  at  the  same  time 
is  wholly  problematic,  and  would  seem  to  remain  so  until  some 
evidence  be  advanced  of  the  existence  of  such  duplicates.  This 
argument  on  the  part  of  our  author  shows  most  clearly  that  for 
the  time  being  he  lost  the  distinction  between  ideas  and  "real  " 
things.  They  are  the  same  in  sense  seventh  ;  he  assumed  them 
to  be  the  same  in  sense  first.  He  falls  into  this  error  again  and 
again. 

The  general  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  the  senses  is  followed 
by  four  special  arguments.  According  to  the  first  of  these,  it  is 
plain  that  perceptions  are  produced  in  us  by  exterior  causes 
affecting  our  senses,  "  because  those  that  want  the  organs  of 
any  sense  never  can  have  the  ideas  belonging  to  that  sense  pro- 
duced in  their  minds."  This  is  supposed  to  prove  that  they 
come  in  by  the  organs  of  that  sense,  and  in  no  other  way.  But 
here  again  one  may  ask,  What  is  meant  by  the  organs  of  any 
sense ?  If  the  " real"  external  organ  be  meant,  one  may  object 


that  its  existence  has  not  yet  been  proved.  If  the  organ  imme- 
diately known  be  meant,  one  has  only  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  certain  ideas  are  a  sine  qua  non  to  the  existence  of  certain 
other  ideas.  How  this  tends  to  prove  the  existence  of  some- 
thing distinct  from  ideas  is  not  apparent.  Locke's  impulse  in 
this  argument  finds  its  source  in  our  common  experience  that 
bodily  organs  immediately  perceived  are  proved  by  observation 
to  be  prerequisites  to  the  experiencing  of  ideas.  We  see  a 
given  object  in  a  certain  relation  to  a  normal  human  body,  and 
we  infer  an  idea  of  the  object  connected  with  that  body.  We 
say  the  man  has  an  idea  of  the  object,  and  can  only  infer  the 
object  itself.  We  connect  the  idea  with  some  particular  part  of 
his  body,  and  regard  this  as  the  medium  through  which  he  gains 
the  idea.  All  this  is  reasonable  enough.  It  is  well  to  remem- 
ber, however,  that  in  all  this  the  "  real  "  object  is  not  observed 
to  play  any  part.  The  object  which  I  certainly  see  in  relation 
to  the  body  which  I  certainly  see  is  what  Locke  would  call  an 
idea.  The  man's  body  is  an  idea.  The  idea  which  I  assume  the 
man  to  have  is  to  me,  if  I  remain  within  the  sphere  of  the  observ- 
able, an  idea  of  the  (idea)  object  I  see.  If  I  am  to  get  any 
"real"  object  at  all  it  is  not  by  reference  to  observation  or  expe- 
rience. If  I  am  to  get  it  by  inference,  some  ground  must  be 
furnished  for  inference.  Again  Locke  has  confounded  the 
observable  with  the  "real."  It  is  only  on  this  ground  that  the 
appeal  to  the  sense  organ  has  any  force. 

The  second  and  the  third  arguments  busy  themselves  to  show 
that  there  are  unmistakable  differences  between  ideas  which 
have  their  origin  in  the  "brisk  acting"  of  objects  without  and 
ideas  of  memory  or  imagination.  The  two  classes  are  shown 
to  be  distinct,  and  it  is  very  properly  held  that  ideas  of  different 
kinds  should  not  be  confounded.  But  the  statement,  that  ideas 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  is  a  very  different  one  from  the 


119 

statement  that  the  two  classes  differ  in  that  one  has  external 
correlates  and  the  other  has  not.  One  may  admit  all  the  dis- 
tinctions which  Locke  makes  in  the  field  of  ideas ;  and,  it  being 
once  proved  that  such  distinctions  imply  a  world  of  "  real " 
things  in  relation  to  certain  ideas,  may  grant  very  readily  that 
these  ideas  have  corresponding  to  them  "  real "  things,  or  that 
Ideas  caused  by  "real"  things  differ  by  such  and  such  marks 
from  other  ideas.  But,  until  it  be  proved  that  the  marks  in  ques- 
tion do  give  a  right  to  infer  "real"  things,  it  should  not  be 
assumed  that  any  given  class  of  ideas  is  caused  by  "real"  things. 
What  is  to  be  discovered  is  assumed.  And  it  is  assumed  here? 
as  above,  because  Locke  could  not  keep  distinct  the  two  classes 
of  things.  He  is  capable  of  saying,  "  But  if  I  turn  my  eyes  at 
noon  towards  the  sun,  I  cannot  avoid  the  ideas  which  the  light, 
or  sun,  then  produces  in  me,"  when  the  whole  dispute  is  over 
the  question  whether  there  be  a  "real"  sun  toward  which  " real" 
eyes  may  be  turned.  How  does  he  know  that  he  is  turning  his 
eyes  toward  the  sun  ?  Does  he  not  see  it  up  there  ?  Is  he  not 
"  actually  looking  upon  it  ? "  His  error  is  too  plain  to  overlook. 
But  if  one  could  doubt  his  confusion  of  the  two  suns,  the  appa- 
rent and  the  "  real,"  his  illustration  from  the  diagrams  used  in 
mathematical  demonstration  would  lay  the  doubt  once  for  all. 
"Real"  lines  exist,  "for  it  would  be  very  strange  that  a  man 
should  allow  it  for  an  undeniable  truth,  that  two  angles  of  a 
figure,  which  he  measures  by  lines  and  angles  of  a  diagram, 
should  be  bigger  one  than  the  other ;  and  yet  doubt  of  the  exist- 
ence of  those  lines  and  angles,  which  by  looking  on  he  makes 
use  of  to  measure  that  by."  The  English  is  not  as  bad  as  the 
reasoning. 

The  fourth  argument  is  derived  from  the  fact  that  one  sense 
supports  the  testimony  of  another.  "  He  that  sees  a  fire  may, 
if  he  doubt  whether  it  be  anything  more  than  a  bare  fancy,  feel 


120 

it  too."  A  bare  fancy,  Locke  is  sure,  would  not  cause  such  acute 
pain.  This  comes  back  to  the  second  and  third  arguments  and 
may  be  criticized  in  the  same  way.  If  one  could  refer  to  a 
single  observation  of  the  fact  that  "real  "  things  do  not  accom- 
pany ideas  of  the  fancy  and  that  they  do  accompany  ideas  of  a 
different  class,  the  argument  would  be  unobjectionable.  Want- 
ing this  observation,  or  something  to  take  its  place,  nothing  is 
proved.  And  as  to  the  senses  helping  each  other  to  "real" 
things,  if  each  sense  only  gives  the  idea  appropriate  to  it,  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  two  together  prove  more  than  one  alone. 
In  this  section,  too,  Locke  is  assuming  that  "real"  things  belong 
to  the  world  of  things  immediately  perceived.  He  can,  he  says, 
make  what  characters  he  pleases  on  the  paper  before  him,  but 
once  having  made  them,  cannot  choose  but  see  them  as  they  are. 
"  Whence  it  is  manifest,  that  they  are  not  barely  the  sport  and 
play  of  my  own  imagination,  when  I  find  that  the  characters 
that  were  made  at  the  pleasure  of  my  own  thought,  do  not  obey 
them ;  nor  yet  cease  to  be,  whenever  I  shall  fancy  it ;  but  con- 
tinue to  affect  the  senses  constantly  and  regularly,  according  to 
the  figures  I  made  them."  That  is,  the  ideas  which  he  con- 
cludes not  to  be  ideas  of  imagination  are  the  things  "which 
continue  to  affect  the  senses,"  or  the  "real"  things.  There  is 
little  wonder  that  this  author  believed  in  "real"  things. 

SEC.  32.  Excellent  work  has  been  done  by  Berkeley  in  dis- 
tinguishing samenesses.  His  treatment  of  sameness  in  sense 
third  I  have  already  quoted.  His  discussion  of  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  finite  lines,1  a  matter  of  which  I  shall  speak  more 
fully  later,  again  brings  out  sense  third.  Almost  his  whole 
philosophy  consists  in  the  endeavor  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the 
significance  of  sense  seventh,  and  to  develop  what  it  implies. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  has  fallen  into  the  error  of  confusing 

1  "  A  Treatise  Concerning  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  §§  123-132.  Ed.  Fraser, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  220225. 


121 

sense  first  and  sense  sixth,  and  of  using  this  confusion  to 
silence  an  objection  to  his  doctrine. 

He  takes  up  in  the  "  Principles,"  for  the  purpose  of  refuting 
it,  the  objection  that  his  doctrine  makes  things  every  moment 
annihilated  and  created  anew.1  This,  he  argues,  "will  not  be 
found  reasonably  charged  on  the  principles  we  have  premised, 
so^as  in  truth  to  make  any  objection  at  all  against  our  notions. 
For,  though  we  hold  indeed  the  objects  of  sense  to  be  nothing 
else  but  ideas  which  cannot  exist  unperceived ;  yet  we  may  not 
hence  conclude  they  have  no  existence  except  only  while  they 
are  perceived  by  us,  since  there  may  be  some  other  spirit  that 
perceives  them  though  we  do  not.  Wherever  bodies  are  said 
to  have  no  existence  without  the  mind,  I  would  not  be  under- 
stood to  mean  this  or  that  particular  mind,  but  all  minds 
whatsoever.  It  does  not  therefore  follow  from  the  foregoing 
principles  that  bodies  are  annihilated  and  created  every  moment, 
or  exist  not  at  all  during  the  intervals  between  our  perception 
of  them." 

To  the  reader  of  Mill  it  is  clear  enough  that  Berkeley  is  not 
content  to  assume  potential  existence  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
life  history  of  an  object.  It  seems  odd  that  he  should  not  do 
so,  as  he  has  himself  pointed  out  the  double  sense  of  the  word 
exist.2  However,  he  demands  actual  existence.  Any  lapse  in 
the  actual  existence  of  the  immediate  object  seems  to  him  a 
destruction  of  the  object.  He  has  the  common  feeling  that  it 
is  contrary  to  nature  that  things  should  be  destroyed  and  created 
from  moment  to  moment.  They  must  exist  continuously.  They 
evidently  do  not  actually  exist  continuously  in  the  one  mind. 
So  he  assumes  that,  during  the  periods  of  their  absence  from 
one  mind,  they  must  exist  in  another :  otherwise  they  could  not 
be  said  to  exist  at  all. 

1  §§  45-48,  PP.  178-180.  2  "  Principles,"  §  3,  p.  157- 


122 

Of  course,  all  this  assumes  that  the  objects  in  one  mind  are 
identically  (sense  first)  the  objects  in  another.  If  they  be 
recognized  as  two  distinct  things,  belonging  to  different  worlds 
—  worlds  so  different  that  what  is  in  one  can  enter  the 
other  only  through  its  representative — the  whole  argument  is 
seen  to  be  fallacious.  One  can  no  more  make  a  consistent  whole 
of  elements  taken  from  two  different  consciousnesses,  than  one 
can  piece  out  a  grief  with  a  smell.  The  attempt  is  the  result  of 
overlooking  the  duality  implied  in  sameness  in  sense  sixth. 

SEC.  33.  There  is  a  clear  and  forcible  passage  in  John  Stuart 
Mill's  "System  of  Logic,"  in  which  he  distinguishes  certain 
samenesses  from  certain  others.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he 
dismissed  the  subject  with  so  slight  an  examination,  for  it  could 
not  but  have  gained  by  a  careful  analysis  at  the  hands  of  this 
keen  man.  I  quote  more  particularly  to  bring  out  what  Mill 
has  to  say  about  sameness  in  sense  second. 

"  While  speaking  of  resemblance,  it  is  necessary  to  take  notice 
of  an  ambiguity  of  language,  against  which  scarcely  any  one  is 
sufficiently  on  his  guard.  Resemblance,  when  it  exists  in  the 
highest  degree  of  all,  amounting  to  undistinguishableness,  is 
often  called  identity,  a<nd  the  two  similar  things  are  said  to  be 
the  same.  I  say  often,  not  always  ;  for  we  do  not  say  that  two 
visible  objects,  two  persons,  for  instance,  are  the  same,  because 
they  are  so  much  alike  that  one  might  be  mistaken  for  the 
other :  but  we  constantly  use  this  mode  of  expression  when 
speaking  of  feelings;  as  when  I  say  that  the  sight  of  any  object 
gives  me  the  same  sensation  or  emotion  to-day  that  it  did  yes- 
terday, or  the  same  which  it  gives  to  some  other  person.  This 
is  evidently  an  incorrect  application  of  the  word  same ;  for  the 
feeling  which  I  had  yesterday  is  gone,  never  to  return ;  what  I 
have  to-day  is  another  feeling,  exactly  like  the  former,  perhaps, 
but  distinct  from  it ;  and  it  is  evident  that  two  different  persons 


123 

cannot  be  experiencing  the  same  feeling,  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  say  that  they  are  both  sitting  at  the  same  table.  By  a  simi- 
lar ambiguity  we  say,  that  two  persons  are  ill  of  the  same  disease ; 
that  two  persons  hold  the  same  office ;  not  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  say  that  they  are  engaged  in  the  same  adventure,  or  sailing 
in  tlje  same  ship,  but  in  the  sense  that  they  fill  offices  exactly 
similar,  though,  perhaps,  in  distant  places.  Great  confusion  of 
ideas  is  often  produced,  and  many  fallacies  engendered,  in  other- 
wise enlightened  understandings,  by  not  being  sufficiently  alive 
to  the  fact  (in  itself  not  always  to  be  avoided),  that  they  use  the 
same  name  to  express  ideas  so  different  as  those  of  identity  and 
undistinguishable  resemblance." * 

It  will  be  seen  that  Mill  here  draws  a  line  between  sameness 
in  sense  first  and  the  samenesses  in  which  there  is  an  element  of 
duality.  He  also  draws  attention  to  the  fact — a  fact  to  which 
I  have  already  referred — that  successive  mental  elements,  con- 
sidered in  themselves,  are  more  likely  to  be  confounded  than 
material  things,  though  these  last  may  be  quite  as  closely  simi- 
lar. Language  shows  how  men  overlook  the  duality  of  two 
similar  feelings  which  differ  only  in  time.  They  may  speak  of 
two  similar  objects  as  the  same,  as  they  frequently  do,  and  yet 
they  will  not  usually  lose  the  sense  of  their  twoness.  They  say 
these  objects  are  the  same.  But  when  they  compare  a  feeling 
experienced  to-day  with  one  experienced  yesterday,  they  say 
this  is  the  same  feeling  I  had  yesterday.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  language  used  to  indicate  duality  at  all. 

I  have  said  that,  in  the  extract  given,  a  line  is  drawn  between 
samenesses  which  imply  duality  and  the  sameness  which 
does  not ;  and  yet  such  illustrations  are  used  to  represent  the 
latter  as  a  man,  a  table,  and  a  ship — objects  which  are  the  same 
in  sense  third  as  well  as  in  sense  first,  and  which  consequently 

1  "A  System  of  Logic,"  Book  I,  Chap,  III,  §  H,  N.  Y.,  1882,  p.  62. 


124 

imply  duality,  in  some  sense  of  the  word.  But,  if  one  is  not  con- 
sidering single  members  of  the  chain  of  experiences  which,  taken 
together,  we  call  a  man,  but  is  considering  the  whole  group  as  a 
unit,  this  difficulty  disappears.  This  is  evidently  what  Mill  has 
in  mind,  and  he  cannot  be  taxed  with  inconsistency.  One  may, 
however,  object  to  the  statement  that  it  is  an  improper  use  of 
the  word  same  to  speak  of  things  merely  similar  as  the  same. 
The  word  has  many  meanings,  and  we  can  hardly  say  that  any 
one  of  them  is  illegitimate.  It  is  merely  illegitimate  to  confound 
them.  And  one  should  not  take  quite  literally  the  description  of 
resemblance  in  the  highest  degree  as  "  amounting  to  undistin- 
guishableness."  Strict  undistinguishableness  removes  all  dual- 
ity, and  consequently  makes  impossible  what  we  call  resemblance 
or  similarity.  To  be  similar,  things  must  be  distinguished  as 
two.  Finally,  one  may  object  to  a  treatment  of  samenesses 
which  merely  groups  them  into  two  classes,  when  there  are  at 
least  seven  kinds  that  should,  in  the  interests  of  clear  thinking, 
be  kept  separate.  It  is  only  by  carefully  marking  such  distinc- 
tions that  fallacious  reasonings  are  to  be  avoided.  As,  however, 
this  discussion  of  samenesses  is  merely  a  side  issue  where  it  occurs 
in  the  Logic,  it  would  perhaps  be  unjust  to  blame  Mill  for  not 
going  into  it  more  fully. 

SEC.  34.  At  this  point  I  leave  the  realms  of  the  dead  and 
emerge  into  the  land  of  the  living.  The  errors  that  I  have 
been  criticizing  still  live,  and  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  glean  a 
goodly  number  of  them  from  the  authors  of  our  day.  I  shall  be 
moderate,  and  will  content  myself  with  one  or  two  representa- 
tive instances. 

It  would  be  surprising  if  as  loose  and  incautious  a  reasoner  as 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  did  not  furnish  some  examples  of  confused 
samenesses.  To  certain  of  his  errors  in  this  direction  I  have 
briefly  referred  in  the  earlier  part  of  my  monograph.  Here  I 


125 

.shall  treat  of  him  a  little  more  at  length,  though  even  here  it  is 
impossible  to  do  justice  to  the  subject,  as  that  would  involve 
my  quoting  and  commenting  upon  at  least  a  large  part  of  the 
first  division  of  the  "First  Principles."  I  shall  take  only  the 
conclusion  of  the  argument  by  which  he  establishes  the  exist- 
ence of  his  "Unknowable,"  or  "Inscrutable  Power,"  or  "Ulti- 
mate Cause,"  or  "Unseen  Reality,"  or  "Absolute."  This  con- 
tains two  confusions  of  no  little  significance.  Mr.  Spencer 
writes : 

"  Hence  our  firm  belief  in  objective  reality — a  belief  which  met- 
aphysical criticisms  cannot  for  a  moment  shake.  When  we  are 
taught  that  a  piece  of  matter,  regarded  by  us  as  existing  exter- 
nally, cannot  be  really  known,  but  that  we  can  know  only  certain 
impressions  produced  on  us,  we  are  yet,  by  the  relativity  of  our 
thought,  compelled  to  think  of  these  in  relation  to  a  positive 
cause — the  notion  of  a  real  existence  which  generated  these  im- 
pressions becomes  nascent.  If  it  be  proved  to  us  that  every 
notion  of  a  real  existence  which  we  can  frame  is  utterly  incon" 
sistent  with  itself — that  matter,  however  conceived  by  us,  can- 
not be  matter  as  it  actually  is,  our  conception,  though  trans- 
figured, is  not  destroyed :  there  remains  the  sense  of  reality, 
dissociated  as  far  as  possible  from  those  special  forms  under 
which  it  was  before  represented  in  thought.  Though  Philosophy 
condemns  successively  each  attempted  conception  of  the  Abso- 
lute— though  it  proves  to  us  that  the  Absolute  is  not  this,  nor 
that,  nor  that — though  in  obedience  to  it  we  negative,  one  after 
another,  each  idea  as  it  arises  ;  yet,  as  we  cannot  expel  the  entire 
contents  of  consciousness,  there  ever  remains  behind  an  element 
which  passes  into  new  shapes.  The  continual  negation  of  each 
particular  form  and  limit,  simply  results  in  the  more  or  less  com- 
plete abstraction  of  all  forms  and  limits ;  and  so  ends  in  an  in- 
definite consciousness  of  the  unformed  and  unlimited. 


126 

"  And  here  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  ultimate  difficulty- 
How  can  there  possibly  be  constituted  a  consciousness  of  the 
unformed  and  unlimited,  when,  by  its  very  nature,  conscious- 
ness is  possible  only  under  forms  and  limits  ?  If  every  con- 
sciousness of  existence  is  a  consciousness  of  existence  as  condi- 
tioned, then  how,  after  the  negation  of  conditions,  can  there  be 
any  residuum  ?  Though  not  directly  withdrawn  by  the  with- 
drawal of  its  conditions,  must  not  the  raw  material  of  conscious- 
ness be  withdrawn  by  implication  ?  Must  it  not  vanish  when 
the  conditions  of  its  existence  vanish  ?  That  there  must  be  a 
solution  of  this  difficulty  is  manifest ;  since  even  those  who 
would  put  it,  do,  as  already  shown,  admit  that  we  have  some  such 
consciousness ;  and  the  solution  appears  to  be  that  above 
shadowed  forth.  Such  consciousness  is  not,  and  cannot  be, 
constituted  by  any  single  mental  act ;  but  is  the  product  of 
many  mental  acts.  In  each  concept  there  is  an  element 
which  persists.  It  is  alike  impossible  for  this  element  to 
be  absent  from  consciousness,  and  for  it  to  be  present  in 
consciousness  alone:  either  alternative  involves  unconscious- 
ness— the  one  from  the  want  of  the  substance;  the  other  from 
the  want  of  the  form.  But  the  persistence  of  this  element 
under  successive  conditions,  necessitates  a  sense  of  it  as  distin- 
guished from  the  conditions,  and  independent  of  them.  The 
sense  of  a  something  that  is  conditioned  in  every  thought,  can- 
not be  got  rid  of,  because  the  something  cannot  be  got  rid  of. 
How  then  must  the  sense  of  this  something  be  constituted? 
Evidently  by  combining  successive  concepts  deprived  of  their 
limits  and  conditions.  We  form  this  indefinite  thought,  as  we 
form  many  of  our  definite  thoughts,  by  the  coalescence  of  a 
series  of  thoughts.  Let  me  illustrate  this  :  A  large  complex 
object,  having  attributes  too  numerous  to  be  represented  at 
once,  is  yet  tolerably  well  conceived  by  the  union  of  several  rep- 


127 

resentations,  each  standing  for  part  of  its  attributes.  On  think- 
ing of  a  piano,  there  first  rises  in  imagination  its  visual  appear- 
ance, to  which  are  instantly  added  (though  by  separate  mental 
acts)  the  ideas  of  its  remote  side  and  of  its  solid  substance.  A 
complete  conception,  however,  involves  the  strings,  the  ham- 
mers, the  dampers,  the  pedals  ;  and  while  successively  adding 
these  to  the  conception,  the  attributes  first  thought  of  lapse  more 
or  less  completely  out  of  consciousness.  Nevertheless,  the 
whole  group  constitutes  a  representation  of  the  piano.  Now  as 
in  this  case  we  form  a  definite  concept  of  a  special  existence,  by 
imposing  limits  and  conditions  in  successive  acts  ;  so,  in  the  con. 
verse  case,  by  taking  away  the  limits  and  conditions  in  succes- 
sive acts,  we  form  an  indefinite  notion  of  general  existence.  By 
fusing  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness,  in  each  of  which,  as  it 
arises,  the  limitations  and  conditions  are  abolished,  there  is  pro- 
duced a  consciousness  of  something  unconditioned.  To  speak 
more  rigorously  : — this  consciousness  is  not  the  abstract  of  any 
one  group  of  thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions  ;  but  it  is  the 
abstract  of  all  thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions.  That  which  is 
common  to  them  all,  and  cannot  be  got  rid  of,  is  what  we  predi- 
cate by  the  word  existence.  Dissociated  as  this  becomes  from 
each  of  its  modes  by  the  perpetual  change  of  those  modes,  it 
remains  as  an  indefinite  consciousness  of  something  constant 
under  all  modes — of  being  apart  from  its  appearances.  The 
distinction  we  feel  between  special  and  general  existence,  is  the 
distinction  between  that  which  is  changeable  in  us,  and  that 
which  is  unchangeable.  The  contrast  between  the  Absolute  and 
the  Relative  in  our  minds,  is  really  the  contrast  between  that 
mental  element  which  exists  absolutely,  and  those  which  exist 
relatively. 

"By  its  very  nature,  therefore,  this  ultimate  mental  element  is 
at   once  necessarily   indefinite  and   necessarily   indestructible. 


128 

Our  consciousness  of  the  unconditioned  being  literally  the 
unconditioned  consciousness,  or  raw  material  of  thought  to 
which  in  thinking  we  give  definite  forms,  it  follows  that  an  ever- 
present  sense  of  real  existence  is  the  very  basis  of  our  intelli- 
gence. As  we  can  in  successive  mental  acts  get  rid  of  all  par- 
ticular conditions  and  replace  them  by  others,  but  cannot  get 
rid  of  that  undifferentiated  substance  of  consciousness  which  is 
conditioned  anew  in  every  thought ;  there  ever  remains  with  us 
a  sense  of  that  which  exists  persistently  and  independently  of 
conditions.  At  the  same  time  that  by  the  laws  of  thought  we 
are  rigorously  prevented  from  forming  a  conception  of  absolute 
existence ;  we  are  by  the  laws  of  thought  equally  prevented  from 
ridding  ourselves  of  the  consciousness  of  absolute  existence  :  this 
consciousness  being,  as  we  here  see,  the  obverse  of  our  self- 
consciousness.  And  since  the  only  possible  measure  of  relative 
validity  among  our  beliefs,  is  the  degree  of  their  persistence  in 
opposition  to  the  efforts  made  to  change  them,  it  follows  that 
this  which  persists  at  all  times,  under  all  circumstances,  and  can- 
not cease  until  consciousness  ceases,  has  the  highest  validity  of 
any. 

"To  sum  up  this  somewhat  too  elaborate  argument: — We 
have  seen  how  in  the  very  assertion  that  all  our  knowledge, 
properly  so  called,  is  Relative,  there  is  involved  the  assertion 
that  there  exists  a  Non-relative.  We  have  seen  how,  in  each 
step  of  the  argument  by  which  this  doctrine  is  established,  the 
same  assumption  is  made.  We  have  seen  how,  from  the  very 
necessity  of  thinking  in  relations,  it  follows  that  the  Relative  is 
itself  inconceivable,  except  as  related  to  a  real  Non-relative. 
We  have  seen  that  unless  a  real  Non-relative  or  Absolute  be 
postulated,  the  Relative  itself  becomes  absolute  ;  and  so  brings 
the  argument  to  a  contradiction.  And  on  contemplating  the 
process  of  thought,  we  have  equally  seen  how  impossible  it  is  to 


129 

get  rid  of  the  consciousness  of  an  actuality  lying  behind  appear- 
ances ;  and  how,  from  this  impossibility,  results  our  indestructi- 
ble belief  in  that  actuality."1 

Such,  an  extract  as  this  is  very  tempting  to  the  critic,  but  I 
shall  try  not  to  be  drawn  into  criticisms  which  do  not  immedi- 
ately concern  my  purpose  in  quoting.  The  points  which  chiefly 
interest  me  are  Mr.  Spencer's  evident  confusion  of  sameness  in 
sense  seventh  with  sameness  in  sense  first,  and  of  sameness  in 
sense  second  with  sameness  in  sense  first.  I  shall  begin  with  the 
first  confusion. 

Every  careful  reader  of  the  extract  given  above  must  see  that 
the  Absolute  with  which  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  is  concerned  is 
an  Absolute  in  consciousness.  It  is  "  an  indefinite  conscious- 
ness," "raw  material  of  consciousness,"  an  "indefinite 
thought,"  an  "abstract  of  all  thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions." 
It  is  the  element  of  existence  which  is  common  to  all  these 
thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions.  If  there  could  be  any  doubt  as 
to  the  nature  of  this  Absolute  in  which  the  argument  results,  it 
should  be  set  at  rest  by  the  very  emphatic  statement  that  "  our 
consciousness  of  the  unconditioned"  is  "literally  the  uncondi- 
tioned consciousness,  or  raw  material  of  thought  to  which  in 
thinking  we  give  definite  forms."  It  is  this  "  undiff erentiated 
substance  of  consciousness  which  is  conditional  anew  in  every 
thought"  that  remains  with  us  as  an  Absolute  through  all 
forms  of  the  conditioned. 

Now  this  Absolute,  the  element  of  existence  which  accom- 
panies all  other  elements  in  consciousness,  is  the  only  one  with 
which  the  argument  has  at  all  concerned  itself,  and  yet  this  is 
evidently  not  the  Absolute  in  which  the  author  is  chiefly  inter- 
ested. There  can  be  no  good  reason  for  calling  this  Absolute 
either  Unknowable,  Incomprehensible,  or  Inscrutable.  It  is  not 

1 "  First  Principles,"  Part  i,  Chap.  IV,  §  26,  N.  Y.,>i888,  pp.  93-97. 


130 

a  "  Power"  for  it  is  simply  the  element  of  existence,  nor  is  it  a 
"Reality,"  for  the  "abstract  of  #// thoughts,  ideas,  or  concep- 
tions" must  be  common  to  the  unreal  or  imaginary  as  well  as  to 
the  real.  It  is  (mental)  existence  pure  and  simple.  If  the  argu- 
ment be  good,  this  element  is  known  completely  and  just  as  it  is ; 
indefinitely,  it  is  true,  but  then  it  is  indefinite,  and  if  known 
definitely  would  not  be  known  as  it  is.  There  is  nothing 
farther  about  it  to  know.  It  is  in  no  sense  Unknowable.  If 
the  objection  be  to  the  use  of  the  word  "know"  where  the 
knowledge  is  indefinite,  we  should  invent  some  word  to  apply  to 
an  indefinite  consciousness ;  but  such  consciousness,  if  denied 
to  be  knowledge,  should  not  be  classed  with  ignorance.  More- 
over, as  knowledge  is  of  all  degrees  of  definiteness,  we  should 
need  a  series  of  words  to  express  the  gradations.  The  series 
would  be  a  long  one. 

But  the  Absolute  which  interests  Mr.  Spencer,  and  which 
throws  that  halo  of  the  mysterious  about  his  philosophy,  is  a 
something  distinct  from  the  Absolute  in  consciousness,  and  not 
known  as  it  is.  It  is  by  no  means  that  which  is  common  to 
"  impressions"  made  upon  us,  but  the  something  assumed  to 
make  these  impressions.  It  is  "  under,"  "  apart  from,"  and 
"  behind"  appearances  and  modes — which  an  Absolute,  which  is 
simply  that  which  is  common  to  appearances  and  modes,  cannot 
be.  Phenomena  (the  things  immediately  known)  are  only 
"a  manifestation  of  some  Power  by  which  we  are  acted  upon,"1 
and  this  Absolute  cannot  take  its  place  among  phenomena,  as 
the  former  must.  The  two  Absolutes  are,  indeed,  quite  distinct 
things :  one  of  them,  the  one  in  consciousness,  has  been  shown 
to  exist ;  no  argument  is  forthcoming  to  prove  the  existence  of 
the  other.  Manifestly  it  is  not  immediately  known,  for  then  it 
would  be  a  phenomenon,  however  indefinite.  Upon  what  ground 
is  it  inferred  ?  It  is  the  old  problem  of  Descartes  and  Locke. 

1 "  First  Principles."    Chap.  V,  §  27,  p.  99. 


This  problem  Mr.  Spencer  solves  in  the  same  way  as  they,  by 
assuming  the  "external"  object  to  be  given  immediately;  but 
there  is  this  important  difference,  that  whereas  Descartes  and 
Locke  fall  into  the  error  from  inadvertence,  the  author  of  the 
"First  Principles"  and  the  "Principles  of  Psychology"  em- 
braces it  deliberately.  The  two  earlier  writers  were  some- 
times able  to  recognize  as  two  things  a  something  in  con- 
sciousness and  an  assumed  something  without.  They  confused 
them  only  now  and  then.  Mr.  Spencer  has  been  unable  to  dis- 
tinguish them  with  clearness  at  any  time,  and  he  elevates  the 
confusion  into  a  principle. 

"The  postulate  with  which  metaphysical  reasoning  sets  out,  is 
that  we  are  primarily  conscious  only  of  our  sensations — that  we 
certainly  know  we  have  these,  and  that  if  there  be  anything  be- 
yond these  serving  as  cause  for  them,  it  can  be  known  only  by 
inference  from  them. 

"I  shall  give  much  surprise  to  the  metaphysical  reader  if  I 
call  in  question  this  postulate ;  and  the  surprise  will  rise  into 
astonishment  if  I  distinctly  deny  it.  Yet  I  must  do  this.  Limit- 
ing the  proposition  to  those  epi-peripheral  feelings  produced  in 
us  by  external  objects  (for  these  are  alone  in  question)  I  see  no 
alternative  but  to  affirm  that  the  thing  primarily  known,  is  not 
that  a  sensation  has  been  experienced,  but  that  there  exists  an 
outer  object."1 

"  The  question  here  is — What  does  consciousness  directly  tes- 
tify ?  And  the  direct  testimony  of  consciousness  is,  that  Time 
and  Space  are  not  within  but  without  the  mind ;  and  so  abso- 
lutely independent  of  it  that  they  cannot  be  conceived  to  become 
non-existent  even  were  the  mind  to  become  non-existent."2 

The  moral  of  the  first  bit  quoted  would  seem  to  be,  unless  we 
make  the  word  "primarily"  refer  only  to  order  in  time,  that  one 

» "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  Part  VII,  Chap.  VI.    N.  Y.,  1883,  Vol.  II,  p.  369. 
!  "  First  Principles,"  Part  I,  Chap.  Ill,  §  15.  ed.  cit.  p.  49. 


132 

knows  immediately  what  is  beyond  consciousness  and  mediately 
what  is  in  it — a  use  of  words  satisfactory,  I  should  think,  to  no 
one  but  Mr.  Spencer.  If,  by  "primarily"  be  meant  "previously," 
and  the  two  classes  of  being  are  known  in  just  the  same  way, 
why  distinguish  between  the  classes  ?  Moreover,  in  this  case  a 
thing  would  not  be  known  "through"  appearances,  but  before 
them.  Upon  the  other  supposition,  to  be  sure,  appearances 
would  be  known  "through"  it — a  mode  of  speaking  not  in  har- 
mony with  the  language  of  the  "First  Principles."  It  seems  a 
choice  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis. 

The  second  extract  makes  consciousness  "directly  testify" 
not  only  to  what  is  beyond  its  pale,  but,  putting  on  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  even  to  what  does  not  belong  to  the  present,  but  to  a 
possible  future.  When  we  speak  of  consciousness  as  testifying 
to  a  sensation,  we  mean  simply  that  the  sensation  is  in  conscious- 
ness. The  word  cannot  be  used  in  this  sense  in  speaking  of 
what  is  beyond  consciousness.  In  what  sense  is  it  used  ?  It 
would  seem  to  mean,  if  it  mean  anything,  that  consciousness 
gives  one  the  right  to  infer  a  something  beyond — a  right  which 
thoughtful  men  believe  should  be  established  by  proof.  This 
proof,  one  cannot,  of  course,  expect  from  a  man  who  makes  the 
thing  beyond  consciousness  the  thing  "primarily"  known.  It 
would  be  more  consistent  in  him  to  attempt  a  proof  that  there  is 
something  in  consciousness. 

This  complete  confusion  in  Mr.  Spencer's  mind  of  things  in 
consciousness  and  things  without,  will  explain  why  he  keeps  talk- 
ing of  his  two  Absolutes  as  if  there  were  only  one,  as  if  this  one 
were  the  one  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  yet  as  if  this  one  were 
beyond  consciousness.  His  pages  swarm  with  illustrations 
which  I  might  give.  I  shall  give  only  the  following :  "  Thus 
the  consciousness  of  an  Inscrutable  Power  manifested  to  us 
through  all  phenomena,  has  been  growing  ever  clearer ;  and  must 


133 

eventually  be  freed  from  its  imperfections."1  If  Mr.  Spencer 
ever  comes  to  a  consciousness  that  sameness  in  sense  seventh  is 
not  sameness  in  sense  first,  he  will  find  work  before  him  in 
remodeling  his  doctrine. 

The  second  confusion  upon  which  I  wish  to  comment  comes 
to  the  surface  in  a  sentence  occurring  near  the  end  of  the  lengthy 
extract  quoted  at  the  outset :  "And  since  the  only  possible 
measure  of  relative  validity  among  our  beliefs,  is  the  degree  of 
their  persistence  in  opposition  to  the  efforts  made  to  change 
them,  it  follows  that  this  which  persists  at  all  times,  under  all 
circumstances,  and  cannot  cease  until  consciousness  ceases/  has 
the  highest  validity  of  any." 

Now  that  which,  it  has  been  argued,  persists  at  all  times  and 
under  all  circumstances,  is  the  "  raw  material  of  thought,"  the 
element  of  existence  which  is  the  "abstract  of  all  thoughts, 
ideas,  or  conceptions."  It  is  merely  that  which  they  have  in 
common,  and  can  include  none  of  those  elements  in  which  they 
differ.  If,  however,  persistence  mean  anything,  it  means  per- 
sistence in  time.  That  which  exists  at  this  time  and  that  which 
exists  at  that  are  not  one,  strictly  speaking,  but  two.  That  is, 
they  are  not  the  same  in  sense  first,  but  in  some  looser  sense 
which  will  admit  of  duality.  If,  then,  we  are  dealing  with  the 
Absolute,  existence  pure  and  simple,  and  are  abstracting  from 
all  differences  which  may  mark  out  this  existence  from  that,  we 
must  abstract  from  temporal  distinctions  too.  If  we  do  this,  we 
can  no  longer  speak  of  the  Absolute  as  persisting.  If  we  do  not 
do  this,  something  may  persist,  but  it  is  no  Absolute.  Mental 
elements  otherwise  similar,  but  distinguished  from  each  other  by 
temporal  differences  are  the  same  in  sense  second,  not  in  sense  first. 
The  existence  of  which  I  am  conscious  to-day  and  the  existence  of 
which  I  was  conscious  yesterday  are  not  the  same  existence  in 

1 "  First  Principles,"  Part  I,  Chap.  V,  §  31,  p.  108. 


134 

any  sense  save  this.  Yesterday's  existence  does  not  persist  to- 
day ;  it  is  replaced  by  another.  Mr.  Spencer  has  evidently  fallen 
into  the  error  of  those  schoolmen  who  endeavored  to  abstract 
the  element  which  several  things  have  in  common,  but  created 
unnecessary  difficulties  by  making  an  incomplete  abstraction 
and  treating  it  as  though  it  were  complete.  Other  defects  of 
this  fallacious  argument  to  prove  our  belief  in  the  Absolute  valid, 
I  will  not  here  discuss. 

SEC.  35.  I  next  take  a  few  passages  which  will  illustrate  the 
confusion  of  samenesses  first  and  seventh,  from  Dr.  James  Mc- 
Cosh's  late  work  on  "First  and  Fundamental  Truths."  They 
are  selected  from  the  chapter  on  "  Our  Intuition  of  Body  by  the 
Senses."1 

"  We  are  following  the  plainest  dictates  of  consciousness,  we 
avoid  a  thousand  difficulties,  and  we  get  a  solid  ground  on  which 
to  rest  and  to  build,  when  we  maintain  that  the  mind  in  its  first 
exercises  acquires  knowledge ;  not,  indeed,  scientific  or  arranged, 
not  of  qualities  of  objects  and  classes  of  objects,  but  still  knowl- 
edge— the  knowledge  of  things  presenting  themselves,  and  as 
they  present  themselves ;  which  knowledge,  individual  and  con- 
crete, is  the  foundation  of  all  other  knowledge,  abstract,  general 
and  deductive.  In  particular,  the  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  at- 
tain a  knowledge  of  body  or  of  material  objects.  It  may  be  diffi- 
cult to  ascertain  the  exact  point  or  surface  at  which  the  mind  and 
body  come  together  and  influence  each  other,  in  particular,  how 
far  into  the  body  (Descartes  without  proof  thought  to  be  in  the 
pineal  gland),  but  it  is  certain  that  when  they  do  meet  mind 
knows  body  as  having  its  essential  properties  of  extension  and 
resisting  energy.  It  is  through  the  bodily  organism  that  the 
intelligence  of  man  attains  its  knowledge  of  all  material  objects 
beyond.  This  is  true  of  the  infant  mind ;  it  is  true  also  of  the 

1  Part  II,  Book  I,  Chap.  II. 


135 

mature  mind.  We  may  assert  something  more  than  this  regard- 
ing the  organism.  It  is  not  only  the  medium  through  which  we 
know  all  bodily  objects  beyond  itself;  it  is  itself  an  object  pri- 
marily known ;  nay,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  along  with  the 
objects  immediately  affecting  it,  it  is  the  only  object  originally 
known.  Intuitively  man  seems  to  know  nothing  beyond  his  own 
organism,  and  objects  directly  affecting  it;  in  all  further  knowl- 
edge there  is  a  process  of  inference  proceeding  on  a  gathered 
experience.  This  theory  seems  to  me  to  explain  all  the  facts, 
and  it  delivers  us  from  many  perplexities."1 

"  In  our  primitive  cognition  of  body  there  is  involved  a  knowl- 
edge of  Outness  or  Externality.  We  know  the  object  perceived, 
be  it  the  organism  or  the  object  affecting  the  organism,  as  not  in 
the  mind,  but  as  out  of  the  mind.  In  regard  to  some  of  the 
objects  perceived  by  us,  we  may  be  in  doubt  as  to  whether  they 
are  in  the  organism  or  beyond  it,  but  we  are  always  sure  that 
they  are  extra-mental."  2 

"We  know  the  Objects  as  Affecting  Us.  I  have  already  said 
that  we  know  them  as  independent  of  us.  This  is  an  important 
truth.  But  it  is  equally  true  and  equally  important  that  these 
objects  are  made  known  to  us  as  somehow  having  an  influence  on 
us.  The  organic  object  is  capable  of  affecting  our  minds,  and 
the  extra-organic  object  affects  the  organism  which  affects  the 
mind.  Upon  this  cognition  are  founded  certain  judgments  as  to 
the  relations  of  the  objects  known  to  the  knowing  mind." 8 

"  But  it  will  be  vehemently  urged  that  it  is  most  preposterous 
to  assert  that  we  know  all  this  by  the  senses.  Upon  this  I 
remark  that  the  phrase  by  the  senses  is  ambiguous.  If  by  senses 
he  meant  the  mere  bodily  organism — the  eye,  the  ears,  the 
nerves  and  the  brain — I  affirm  that  we  know,  and  can  know, 
nothing  by  this  bodily  part,  which  is  a  mere  organ  or  instru- 

1 N.  Y.,  1889,  PP.  62-63.  2  Pp.  68-69.  8 P.  TO. 


136 

ment ;  that  so  far  from  knowing  potency  or  extension,  we  do 
not  know  even  color,  or  taste,  or  smell.  But  if  by  the  senses  he 
meant  the  mind  exercised  in  sense-perception,  summoned  into 
activity  by  the  organism,  and  contemplating  cognitively  the 
external  world,  then  I  maintain  that  we  do  know,  and  this  intui- 
tively, external  objects  as  influencing  us  ;  that  is,  exercising 
powers  in  reference  to  us.  I  ask  those  who  would  doubt  of  this 
doctrine  of  what  it  is  that  they  suppose  the  mind  to  be  cogni- 
zant in  sense-perception.  If  they  say  a  mere  sensation  or 
impression  in  the  mind,  I  reply  that  this  is  not  consistent  with 
the  revelation  of  consciousness,  which  announces  plainly  that 
what  we  know  is  something  extra-mental.  If  they  say,  with 
Kant,  a  mere  phenomenon  in  the  sense  of  appearance,  then  I 
reply  that  this,  too,  is  inconsistent  with  consciousness,  which 
declares  that  we  know  the  thing."1 

The  statements  contained  in  these  extracts  are  plainly  in  a 
state  of  civil  war,  and  might  be  left,  without  foreign  aid,  to  com- 
plete their  own  destruction.  I  shall  first  let  them  criticize  each 
other. 

(1)  It  is  asserted  that  it  may  be  difficult  to  ascertain  the  exact 
point  or  surface  at  which  the  mind  and  body  come  together  and 
influence  each  other — in  particular  how  far  into  the  body — but 
that  it  is  certain   that  when   they  do  meet  mind  knows  body 
as  having  its  essential  properties  of   extension   and  resisting 
energy. 

This  knowledge  is  said  to  arise  when  they  meet,  be  it  marked, 
and  not  before. 

(2)  It  is  also  asserted  that  it  is  through  the  body  that  the  mind 
attains  its  knowledge  of  all  material  objects  beyond. 

This  makes  our  knowledge  of  objects  beyond  the  body  medi- 
ate and  not  immediate.  Why  are  objects  beyond  the  body 

1  Pp.  71  and  72. 


137 

regarded  as  mediately  known  ?  No  reason  is  suggested  except 
that  they  are  not  themselves  in  contact  with  the  mind,  but  only 
in  contact  with  that  which  is  in  contact  with  the  mind.  It  is 
then  presumable  that  any  parts  of  the  bodily  organism  which 
never  themselves  meet  the  mind  (if  there  are  any  such)  are  not 
known  immediately,  but  only  through  the  parts  which  do  meet 
the  mind.  That  is,  they  are  known  mediately,  too.  That  there 
are,  or  at  least  may  be,  such  parts,  is  directly  inferrible  from 
the  statement  that  we  do  not  know  "how  far  into  the  body" 
mind  and  body  come  together. 

(3)  It  is  stated  that  the  body  is  an  object  "primarily"  known. 
It  is  regarded  by  the  author  as  probable  that,  along  with  the 
objects  immediately  affecting  it,  it  is  the  only  object  "origin- 
ally" known.     He  thinks  that  man  knows  "intuitively"  nothing 
beyond  his  own  organism  and  objects  directly  affecting  it. 

But  what  is  meant  by  the  words  "primarily,"  "originally," 
"  intuitively  "  ?  If  things  not  in  direct  contact  with  mind  are 
not  known  immediately  but  through  something  else,  and  if  the 
point  or  surface  at  which  mind  and  body  meet  is  at  some  uncer- 
tain distance  from  the  surface  of  the  body,  surely  the  only 
material  thing  immediately  known  is  that  portion  of  the  body 
in  contact  with  mind,  and  not  the  whole  body  with  the  objects 
directly  affecting  it.  Knowledge  of  these  mediate  objects  must 
be  due  to  a  process  of  inference  from  what  is  directly  experi- 
enced. Things  known  "primarily"  "originally"  and  "intui- 
tively" are  then  known  mediately  and  inferentially — even  in 
some  cases  so  imperfectly  known  that  it  is  not  known  what  and 
where  they  are,  whether  in  or  beyond  the  body. 

(4)  The  doctrine  that  we  are  conscious  in  sense-perception 
of  a  mere  sensation  or  impression  in  the  mind  is  answered  by 
the  statement  that  this  is  not  consistent  with  the  revelation  of 
consciousness,  which  announces  plainly  that  what  we  know  is 


138 

something  extra-mental.  Kant's  phenomenalism  is  met  by  the 
claim  that  consciousness  declares  that  we  know  the  thing. 

A  thing  known  mediately,  however,  cannot  be  more  certainly 
known  than  the  thing  known  immediately,  and  from  which  its 
existence  is  inferred.  The  immediate  revelation  of  consciousness 
cannot  do  more  than  give  us  a  knoivledge  of  the  point  or  surface 
at  which  mind  and  body  meet.  It  is  only  here  that  mind  can 
directly  know  body  "  as  having  its  essential  properties  of  exten- 
sion and  resisting  energy."  But  so  far  from  consciousness  testi- 
fying to  the  extension  and  resistance  of  this  part  of  the  body,  it 
does  not,  as  Dr.  Me  Cosh  admits •,  testify  to  this  part  of  the  body  at 
all.  If  it  reveal  nothing  as  to  what  it  knows  immediately, 
what  can  its  statement  as  to  what  it  knows  mediately  be  worth  ? 
And  if  consciousness  testifies  that  it  knows  immediately  what 
Dr.  McCosh  has  maintained  to  be  mediately  known,  he  must 
hold  that  its  revelation  is  false  and  delusive.  It  certainly  seems 
to  me  that  my  consciousness  reveals  the  ink-stand  before  me  as 
it  does  not  reveal  the  part  of  my  body  with  which  the  mind  has 
"come  together,"  since  it  does  not  even  reveal  whether  this 
part  be  a  point  or  a  surface.  If  my  knowledge  of  the  ink-stand 
must  rest  upon  my  knowledge  of  this,  and  can  have  no  greater 
certainty,  my  faith  in  the  ink-stand  must  go.  A  tower  cannot 
be  more  firm  than  its  foundation. 

So  much  for  the  consistency  of  the  extracts  themselves.  I 
now  turn  to  a  criticism  on  a  different  basis.  The  difficulties 
connected  with  this  inconsistent  doctrine  naturally  arise  out  of 
the  standpoint  occupied  by  the  author.  He  accepts  as  final, 
and  as  justifiable  in  metaphysics,  the  convenient  psychological 
assumption  that  the  group  of  sensations  gained  from  an  object 
is  a  something  distinct  from  the  object  itself ;  that  the  object 
may  be  external  to  the  organism,  but  that  the  mind,  with  its 
sensations,  is,  or  may  be  treated  as  if  it  were,  somewhere  within 


139 

the  organism ;  that  the  sensations  are  gained  from  real  things, 
but  are  not  themselves  real  things,  so  that  a  world  of  sensa- 
tions— things  being  abstracted — must  be  an  unreal  and  phantom 
world. 

Now,  the  man  who  has  thus  distinguished  between  things  and 
sensations,  if  he  regard  the  sensations  as  our  only  immediate 
representatives  of  the  things,  will  find  it  difficult,  without  making 
an  evidently  gratuitous  assumption  somewhere,  to  prove  his 
right  to  reach  things  at  all.  Dr.  McCosh  sees  this  difficulty, 
and  so  he  assumes  that  consciousness  reveals  both  sensations 
and  things.  He  allows  us  "perceptions  mingled  with  sensa- 
tions." 1  Where  are  these  mingled  perceptions  and  sensations  ? 
In  the  mind.  Where  is  the  mind?  In  the  body.  In  what 
body  ?  The  body  perceived.  Is  this  body  perceived  itself  in 
the  mind  and  mingled  with  sensations  ?  No.  It  is  then  dis- 
tinct from  the  mental  percept — the  perception  of  it  is  some- 
where in  it,  but  is  not  it.  How  do  we  know,  then,  that  there  is 
a  body  ?  We  infer  it  from  the  percept ;  consciousness  (the  per- 
cept) "reveals"  it.  On  what  principle  is  it  inferred?  The 
question  is  a  just  one  if  the  knowledge  be  not  immediate.  Our 
author  does  not  even  see  that  there  is  a  question.  The  fact  is 
that  this  doctrine  seems  to  avoid  the  difficulties  of  a  representa- 
tive perception  only  while  it  is  allowed  to  remain  loose  and 
vague.  If  things  are  not  to  be  known  representatively,  they 
must  either  be  themselves  in  consciousness — and  then  they  are 
not  extra-mental — or  they  must  be  directly  known  in  some 
other  way  than  as  in  consciousness,  and  then  consciousness  does 
not  reveal  them  and  cannot  be  appealed  to.  An  appeal  to  con- 
sciousness, unless  the  thing  itself  is  in  consciousness,  is  fatal. 

But  this  discrimination  between  sensations  and  the  thing 
causing  the  sensations,  and  the  assumption  that  consciousness 

»  Chap.  Ill,  p.  75- 


140 

testifies  to  the  two  classes  of  things,  does  not  seem  to  be  borne 
out  by  the  facts.  Consciousness  does  not  testify  to  the  two 
classes.  The  common  man  thinks  that  he  knows  directly  the 
things  that  he  sees  and  feels,  and  the  distinction  between  these 
things  and  his  ideas  of  the  things,  or  his  sensations  gathered 
from  the  things,  arises  only  upon  reflection  and  after  a  compari- 
son of  his  experiences  with  those  of  other  men.  He  sees  the 
ink-stand  in  front  of  another  man's  body.  He  discovers  that 
the  other  man  sees  the  ink-stand — that  is,  has  an  experience  like 
his  own.  He  finds,  after  investigation,  that  this  other  man  does 
not  have  the  experience  until  after  some  influence  has  been  con- 
ducted by  the  nerves  to  the  brain.  He  accordingly  concludes 
that  the  mind  of  this  other  man,  and  all  that  it  immediately 
knows,  is  situated  somewhere  in  the  brain.  He  thus  distin- 
guishes between  the  ink-stand  and  the  representative  of  the 
ink-stand  in  the  mind  of  the  other  man.  This  is  precisely  what 
Dr.  McCosh  has  done,  though  he  has  preferred  to  use  the  word 
perception  instead  of  sensation  or  impression.  Having  gone  as 
far  as  this,  the  man  in  question  reflects,  if  he  be  consistent,  that 
his  own  case  must  be  essentially  similar  to  that  of  the  man  he 
is  considering,  and  concludes  that  he,  too,  sees  only  (immedi- 
ately, at  least)  some  representative  of  the  ink-stand,  and  not  the 
thing  itself.  Dr.  McCosh  does  not  conclude  this,  because  he  is 
not  consistent.  But  an  ink-stand,  a  tree,  a  house,  in  the  brain, 
cannot  be  very  much  like  a  real  ink-stand,  tree  or  house.  Then 
one  does  not  see  things  as  they  are,  but  is  condemned  to  a 
phantom  world.  Having  gone  thus  far,  our  common  man  is 
appalled  at  his  own  conclusions,  as  well  he  may  be. 

He  may,  however,  be  readily  reassured,  if  one  will  point  out 
to  him  the  error  in  his  argument.  The  whole  argument  began 
by  assuming  that  he  has  evidence  that  some  object  is  in  front  of 
his  body  and  in  front  of  the  body  of  another  man  ;  that  he  has 


a  body  and  so  has  the  other  man.  If  this  knowledge  be  imme- 
diate, of  course  it  may  furnish  the  basis  of  an  argument ;  but  if 
it  be  not  immediate,  one  has  no  right  to  begin  with  it,  but  should 
go  back  to  what  is  immediate.  Let  us  assume  that  it  is  imme- 
diate. What  I  am  then  conscious  of  is  my  own  body,  the  other 
man's  body  and  the  object  in  relation  to  them.  Upon  this  basis 
I  argue  to  some  representative  of  the  object  I  immediately  see, 
and  I  connect  it  with  the  man's  brain.  Does  the  man  now  see 
two  objects  or  only  one  ?  If  only  one,  which  one  ?  The  one  I 
refer  to  his  brain,  or  the  one  I  see  ?  Does  the  one  he  sees 
seem  to  him  to  be  in  his  brain  ?  Probably  he  has  not  the  least 
notion  that  it  is  connected  with  that  organ.  Am  I,  then,  in  his 
case  ?  Do  I  also  see  only  a  copy  of  the  object  in  my  brain  ? 
And  may  this  not  be  true,  although  I  have  no  immediate  knowl- 
edge of  my  brain  and  its  relation  to  that  object  ?  But — and  this 
is  the  important  point — if  all  this  be  true,  how  about  the  posi. 
tion  with  which  I  started  ?  My  argument  is  based  upon  two 
real  bodies  and  a  real  object.  I  see  that  I  was  wholly  in  error 
in  supposing  that  I  saw  these  and  could  reason  from  them. 
Then  the  reasoning  is  not  good.  Then  the  conclusion  is  not 
reliable,  and  it  is  not  proved  that  I  see  immediately  only  an 
image  in,  or  in  some  sort  of  contact  with,  my  brain.  The  falla- 
cious character  of  the  argument  is  plain  enough ;  where  is  the 
flaw  ?  It  lies  in  this  : 

I  assume  that  I  see  the  two  bodies  and  the  object  immediately. 
Consciousness  seems  to  reveal  them.  After  granting  the  man 
opposite  me  a  representative  of  that  object  I  apply  the  same 
reasoning  to  myself,  forgetting  that  I  assumed  at  the  outset  that 
I  see  the  real  object.  I  can  certainly  not  put  the  object  I  see  in 
my  brain,  for  the  brain  in  any  way  I  can  be  conceived  to  know 
it  belongs  to  precisely  the  same  class  of  things  as  this  object, 
and  they  are  beside  each  other  in  consciousness.  The  represent- 


142 

ative  the  other  man  has  is  a  representative  of  the  object  in  my 
consciousness,  and  not — at  least,  I  have  no  evidence  that  it  is — 
a  representative  of  a  something  else  of  which  my  object  is  also 
a  representative.  And  if  the  object  of  which  I  am  immediately 
conscious  is  extended  and  without  my  body  (immediately  per- 
ceived), I  may  assume  that  the  object  in  his  consciousness  is  also 
extended  and  without  the  body  in  his  consciousness.  His  rep. 
resentative  of  my  object  is  not  in  the  head  I  see,  for  his  head  as 
I  see  it  is  in  my  consciousness,  if  the  object  I  see  is,  and  any 
object  in  his  consciousness  is  the  same  with  any  corresponding- 
object  in  mine  only  in  sense  sixth — a  sense  of  sameness  which 
I  have  explained  at  length  in  the  earlier  part  of  my  work.  This 
reasoning  is,  it  seems  to  me,  clear  enough  and  consistent  enough, 
and  should  be  plain  to  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  fol- 
low it  carefully.  It  lands  one  in  no  such  difficulties  and  incon- 
sistencies as  result  from  the  doctrine  I  have  been  criticizing. 
Should  it  be  said  this  is  a  form  of  Idealism,  and  at  least  aban- 
dons what  is  extra-mental,  I  answer,  the  name  is  a  matter  of 
taste  and  of  little  significance  ;  what  is  important  is  that  this 
doctrine  does  not  found  its  reasoning  upon  an  assumption  which 
its  conclusion  declares  to  be  false ;  nor  does  it  maintain  that 
what  is  immediately  known  is  not  extended,  figured,  external  to 
the  body,  as  it  seems  to  be,  but  something  quite  different  and 
dissimilar.  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  revelation  of  conscious- 
ness. Should  it  still  be  objected  that  it  makes  no  distinction 
between  things  and  the  sensations  or  impressions  which  repre- 
sent them,  I  answer,  one  can  object  to  things  being  regarded  as 
complexes  of  sensations  only  as  long  as  he  separates  sensations 
and  things,  making  the  former  unlike  the  things  and  relegating 
them  to  a  place  (the  brain)  where  the  things  are  not,  and  to 
exist  in  which  they  must  be  very  bad  copies  of  the  things 
indeed.  The  doctrine  I  advocate  does  not  deny  the  things  as 
perceived  at  all ;  it  merely  holds  that  consciousness  does  declare 


143 

for  the  things,  and  not  for  a  set  of  representatives  much  unlike 
them  and  said  to  exist  in  a  place  in  which  we  are  not  conscious 
of  perceiving  anything.  It  objects  to  seeing  double  through  an 
incomplete  reflection  upon  what  consciousness  reveals. 

Now  itxis  very  evident  that  Dr.  McCosh,  in  his  anxiety  to  prove 
an  extra-mental  world,  is  actuated  by  a  desire  to  retain  real 
things.  He  is  under  the  impression  that,  unless  the  extra- 
mental  is  known,  our  knowledge  is  confined  to  shadows  and 
unrealities.  He  combats  the  Idealist,  because  he  supposes  him 
to  deny  the  body  of  which  we  are  conscious ;  whereas,  all  that 
the  Idealist  is  denying  (if  he  be  consistent  with  his  principles)  is 
the  hypothetical  representative  of  the  body,  assumed  to  exist 
within  the  body,  and  to  which  consciousness  does  not  testify. 
It  is  this  that  is  the  unreality.  The  body  to  which  the  Idealist 
holds  is  the  very  body  to  which  Dr.  McCosh  thinks  conscious- 
ness testifies ;  but  this  body  is  not  beyond  consciousness,  nor  in 
any  proper  sense  of  the  words  extra-mental.  The  -above  argu- 
ment for  the  extra-mental  is  consequently  due  to  a  misconcep- 
tion— to  the  misconception  that  the  body  revealed  by  conscious, 
ness  is  the  extra-mental  body,  and  that  the  only  body  left  to  an 
Idealist  is  an  unreal  phantom  of  this  body,  and  distinct  from  it. 
And  it  is  the  attempt  to  make  this  body  revealed  by  conscious- 
ness both  in  mind  and  out  of  mind  that  has  occasioned  the  diffi- 
culties and  inconsequences  of  the  reasoning  I  have  quoted. 
This  attempt  is  due  to  a  confusion  of  sameness  in  sense  seventh 
with  sameness  in  sense  first.  My  excuse  for  so  minute  a  criti- 
cism of  this  plainly  untenable  position  is  that  we  have  here  a 
representative  instance  of  an  error  quite  common,  and  indeed 
characteristic  of  a  certain  stage  of  reflection. 

SEC.  36.  The  last  confusion  of  samenesses  that  I  shall  discuss 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  common  opinion  on  the  infinite  divisi- 
bility of  space,  and  causes  the  antinomies  which  arise  from  it- 
The  position  I  shall  criticize  is  well  set  forth  in  Professor  W.  K. 


144 

Clifford's  popular  lecture  entitled  "Of  Boundaries  in  General."1 
From  this  I  take  a  few  passages  which  will  suffice  to  illustrate 
his  doctrine. 

"  Now  the  idea  expressed  by  that  word  continuous  is  one  of 
extreme  importance  ;  it  is  the  foundation  of  all  exact  science  of 
things ;  and  yet  it  is  so  very  simple  and  elementary  that  it  must 
have  been  almost  the  first  clear  idea  that  we  got  into  our  heads. 
It  is  only  this  :  I  cannot  move  this  thing  from  one  position  to 
another,  without  making  it  go  through  an  infinite  number  of 
intermediate  positions.  Infinite  ;  it  is  a  dreadful  word,  I  know, 
until  you  find  out  that  you  are  familiar  with  the  thing  which  it 
expresses.  In  this  place  it  means  that  between  any  two  posi- 
tions there  is  some  intermediate  position;  between  that  and 
either  of  the  others,  again,  there  is  some  other  intermediate ; 
and  so  on  without  any  end.  Infinite  means  without  any  end. 
If  you  went  on  with  that  work  of  counting  forever,  you  would 
never  get  any  further  than  the  beginning  of  it.  At  last  you 
would  only  have  two  positions  very  close  together,  but  not  the 
same  ;  and  the  whole  process  might  be  gone  over  again,  begin- 
ning with  those  as  many  times  as  you  like." 

*  *     *     *     « When  a  point    moves,    it   moves  along   some 
line ;  and  you  may  say  that  it  traces  out  or  describes  the  line. 
To  look  at  something  definite,  let  us  take  the  point  where  this 
boundary  of  red  on  paper  is  cut  by  the  surface   of  water.     I 
move  all  about  together.     Now  you  know  that  between  any  two 
positions  of  the  point  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate 
positions.     Where  are  they  all  ?     Why,  clearly,  in  the  line  along 
which  the  point  moved.      That  line  is  the  place  where  all  such 
points  are  to  be  found." 

*  *     *     *     "  It  seems  a  very  natural  thing  to  say  that  space 
is  made  up  of  points.     I  want  you  to  examine  very  carefully 

1 "  Seeing  and  Thinking,"  London,  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1879. 


145 

what  this  means,  and  how  far  it  is  true.  And  let  us  first  take 
the  simplest  case,  and  consider  whether  we  may  safely  say  that 
a  line  is  made  up  of  points.  If  you  think  of  a  very  large 
number — say,  a  million — of  points  all  in  a  row,  the  end  ones 
being  an  ipch  apart ;  then  this  string  of  points  is  altogether  a 
different  thing  from  a  line  an  inch  long.  For  if  you  single  out 
two  points  which  are  next  one  another,  then  there  is  no  point  of 
the  series  between  them  ;  but  if  you  take  two  points  on  a  line, 
however  close  together  they  may  be,  there  is  an  infinite  number 
of  points  between  them.  The  two  things  are  different  in  kind, 
not  in  degree." 

*  *  *  *  "When  a  point  moves  along  a  line,  we  know  that 
between  any  two  positions  of  it  there  is  an  infinite  number  (in 
this  new  sense1)  of  intermediate  positions.  That  is  because  the 
motion  is  continuous.  Each  of  those  positions  is  where  the 
point  was  at  some  instant  or  other.  Between  the  two  end  posi- 
tions on  the  line,  the  point  where  the  motion  began  and  the 
point  where  it  stopped,  there  is  no  point  of  the  line  which  does 
not  belong  to  that  series.  We  have  thus  an  infinite  series  of 
successive  positions  of  a  continuously  moving  point,  and  in  that 
series  are  included  all  the  points  of  a  certain  piece  of  line-room. 
May  we  say  then  that  the  line  is  made  up  of  that  infinite  series 
of  points  ? 

"  Yes ;  if  we  mean  no  more  than  that  the  series  makes  up  the 
points  of  the  line.  But  no,  if  we  mean  that  the  line  is  made  up  of 
those  points  in  the  same  way  that  it  is  made  up  of  a  great  many 
very  small  pieces  of  line.  A  point  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a 
partvi  a  line,  in  any  sense  whatever.  It  is  the  boundary  between 
two  parts." 

These  extracts  suffice,  I  think,  to  show  what  the  common  doc- 
trine is,  and  to  show  also  the  unavoidable  difficulties  connected 

1  Professor  Clifford  has  used  the  word  number  in  two  senses,  a  quantitative  and  a  quali- 
tative. By  number  in  the  latter  sense  he  means  simply  unlimited  units. 


146 

with  it.  These  were  clearly  seen  long  ago.  Motion,  argues 
Zeno  of  Elea,1  cannot  begin,  because  a  body  in  motion  must 
pass  through  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate  places  before  it 
can  arrive  at  any  other  place.  Achilles  can  never  overtake  the 
tortoise,  for  by  the  time  that  he  has  reached  the  place  where  it 
was,  it  has  always  moved  a  little  beyond.  If  Professor  Clifford 
could  not  move  a  thing  from  one  position  to  another,  without 
making  it  go  though  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate  positions, 
if  these  positions  must  be  gone  through  with  successively,  and  if 
infinite  really  mean  without  any  end,  then  the  final  member  of  the 
series  could  never  have  been  reached,  for  the  plain  reason  that 
there  is  no  final  member  to  an  endless  series.  If  the  new  posi- 
tion is  reached  without  passing  through  every  member  of  the 
series  and  leaving  none  farther  to  pass  through,  it  is  not  reached 
by  passing  through  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate  positions. 
The  difficulty  here  is  a  hopeless  one ;  either  the  series  has  a 
final  member,  and  then  it  is  not  infinite ;  or  it  has  not,  and  then 
one  cannot  come  to  the  end. 

The  attempt  sometimes  made  to  avoid  this  difficulty  by  calling 
upon  a  precisely  similar  one  for  aid  is  of  not  the  least  avail.  The 
time  of  the  motion,  it  is  said,  is  divisible  just  as  is  the  space 
over  which  the  body  moves  ;  the  spaces  and  the  times  then  vary 
together,  and  as  the  spaces  become  very  small  the  times  become 
very  small ;  infinitesimal  spaces  are  passed  over  in  infinitesimal 
times,  and  all  these  infinitesimals  are  included  in  the  finite  space 
and  finite  time  of  the  motion.  But  if  there  be  a  difficulty  in 
arriving  at  the  end  of  an  endless  series  of  places  or  positions, 
there  is  surely  no  less  a  difficulty  in  reaching  the  end  of  an  end- 
less series  of  times.  If  the  series  of  times  to  be  successively 
exhausted  be  truly  endless,  then  an  end  of  the  motion  can  never 
be  reached.  Quibbling  over  the  size  of  the  members  of  the 

1  Ueberweg,  Hist,  of  Philos.,  Vol.  I,  §  20.    N.  Y.,  1877,  pp.  57-58. 


147 

series  in  the  case  of  either  space  or  time  is  useless.  Whether 
things  are  big  or  little,  if  the  supply  of  them  is  truly  endless,  one 
can  never  get  to  the  end  of  the  supply.  The  rapidity  with  which 
they  are  exhausted  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  for  an 
increase  in.  rapidity  has  obviously  no  effect  in  facilitating  an  ap- 
proach to  what  is  assumed  not  to  exist,  a  final  term.  It  is,  then, 
perfectly  clear  that,  if,  in  order  to  move  a  body,  I  must  come  to 
the  end  of  an  endless  series,  I  may  reasonably  conclude  that  I 
cannot  move  a  body.  Granting  the  assumption  upon  which  it  is 
based,  Zeno's  argument  is  unanswerable.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
an  ordinary  difficulty,  a  trifling  evil ;  it  is  a  question  of  an  impos- 
sibility, a  flat  contradiction ;  to  move  an  inch,  to  endure  for  a 
minute,  one  is  to  accomplish  the  feat  of  reaching  the  end  of  the 
endless.  One  thing  is  quite  certain ;  no  rival  doctrine  can  pre- 
sent a  greater  difficulty. 

It  is  possible  that  some  one  may  wish  to  find  a  way  out  of  this 
difficulty  by  distinguishing,  as  Clifford  has  done,  between  the 
points  of  the  line  and  the  parts  of  the  line.  But  this  distinction  is 
of  no  service.  All  these  points  are  declared  to  be  on  the  line,  and 
anything  that  passes  over  the  whole  line  must  exhaust  them  one 
by  one  until  it  arrives  at  the  final  point.  By  hypothesis,  there 
is  no  final  point  to  the  series — the  series  is  without  any  end. 
Unless,  then,  the  line  can  be  passed  over  without  passing  over 
the  points,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  help  in  turning  to  line 
pieces.  Moreover,  it  appears  reasonable  to  assume  that  there  are 
as  many  parts  to  the  line  as  there  are  points.  For  all  these 
points  are  on  the  line,  and  no  two  of  them  are  in  precisely  the 
same  position  on  the  line ;  they  must  consequently  be  on  different 
parts  of  the  line.  If  it  be  objected  that,  having  no  -extension, 
they  cannot  properly  be  said  to  be  on  parts  of  the  line,  I  answer 
that,  even  on  this  hypothesis,  they  must  be  at  different  parts  of 
the  line,  in  order  to  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  The 


148 

part  of  the  line  between  any  two  of  them  is  certainly  not  the 
same  as  the  part  between  any  other  two.  It  follows  that  the 
number  of  parts  of  which  the  line  is  made  up  is  at  least  as  great 
as  the  number  of  points  less  one,  if  we  refuse  to  say  that  the 
points  are  on  the  line ;  and  is  as  great  as  the  number  of  points, 
if  we  are  willing  to  say  that  they  are  on  the  line.  To  move  over 
the  whole  line,  then,  a  point  must  come  within  one  term  of  the 
end  of  an  endless  series,  or  it  must  pass  over  an  endless  number 
of  small  pieces  of  line  until  it  comes  to  the  very  end.  Does  this 
seem  a  sensible  doctrine  ? 

The  rival  doctrine,  sometimes  called  the  Berkeleyan,  contains 
no  such  difficulties,  and  it  makes  evident  that  the  difficulties  dis- 
cussed above  arise  simply  out  of  a  confusion  of  samenesses,  and 
are  gratuitous.  Its  discussion  demands  that  I  call  to  mind  a 
few  distinctions  already  made. 

One  must  bear  in  mind,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  line  immedi- 
ately known,  existing  in  consciousness,  is  the*  same  with  an 
"  external "  line  corresponding  to  it,  not  in  sense  first,  but  in 
sense  seventh.  That  is,  they  are  two  lines,  not  one,  and  in  the 
interests  of  clearness  they  should  be  considered  separately. 

One  should  remember,  in  the  second  place,  that  a  line  in  con- 
sciousness at  one  moment  is  not,  in  the  strictest  sense,  the  same 
with  a  line  in  consciousness  at  another  moment.  One  may 
stand  for  the  other  and  thus  be  the  same  with  it  in  sense  fifth  ; 
or  the  two  may  be  regarded  as  both  belonging  to  the  one  series 
of  experiences,  which,  taken  together,  represent  to  us  "  an 
object,"  in  which  case  they  are  the  same  in  sense  third.  A 
thing  the  same  with  another  thing  in  either  of  these  senses  is 
not  necessarily  much  like  it.  It  must  only  be  able  to  serve  as 
its  representative. 

Now  I  see  a  line  about  an  inch  long  on  the  paper  before  me. 
It  is  a  certain  distance  from  my  eyes.  I  shall  concern  myself 


149 

for  the  present  only  with  the  line  immediately  perceived,  which 
means  for  me  so  much  sensation.  If  I  move  this  line  (which 
remains  the  same  in  sense  third),  nearer  to  me  or  farther  away, 
I  do  not  perceive  the  identical  thing  that  I  did  before.  My 
quantity  qf  sensation  is  increased  or  diminished.  If  I  keep  the 
line  at  the  same  distance  and  change  none  of  the  conditions, 
the  quantity  of  sensation  remains  presumably  the  same.  The 
question  arises,  Is  this  line  as  actually  experienced  at  this 
moment  infinitely  divisible  or  not  ?  I  can  certainly  conceive  of 
it  as  divisible  to  some  extent,  for  I  see  part  out  of  part,  and  I  can 
think  of  these  parts  as  separated.  But  if  this  line  were  divided, 
the  division  would  soon  result  in  parts  which  could  be  seen, 
but  which  could  not  be  seen  to  consist  of  part  out  of  part.  Were 
these  apparently  non-extended  parts  (they  would  remain  the 
same  in  sense  third),  approached  to  the  eyes,  they,  too,  would 
be  seen  to  consist  of  part  out  of  part,  but  then  I  should  simply 
have  substituted  for  the  apparently  non-extended  a  represent- 
ative which  was  extended.  This  would  not  prove  that  what  was 
before  in  consciousness  was  extended  and  could  be  divided. 
Consciousness  certainly  seems  to  testify  that  any  particular  line 
in  consciousness  is  composed  of  a  limited  number  of  indivisible 
parts,  and  when  one  adds  to  this  reflection  the  consideration 
that  a  point  moving  over  a  given  line  does  not  appear  to  have 
an  endless  task  before  it,  but  soon  arrives  at  the  final  term,  one 
is  irresistibly  impelled  to  the  conclusion  that  the  parts  of  the 
iir»e  are  not  infinite,  but  that  the  division  results  in  the  indivisi- 
ble, the  simple  element  of  sensation,  which,  joined  with  other 
such  elements,  makes  an  extended  object,  but  which  taken  alone 
is  not  extended  at  all.  The  whole  difficulty  lies  in  keeping  to 
the  line  and  the  parts  with  which  one  started.  It  is  so  easy  to 
pass  from  sameness  in  sense  first  to  sameness  in  sense  third  or 
sense  fifth  ;  it  is  so  natural  to  bring  an  object  which  is,  as  we 


say,  imperfectly  seen,  closer  to  the  eye  and  thus  substitute  for 
what  was  seen  before  a  new  experience  connected  with  it  in  the 
order  of  nature,  confident  that  any  system  of  relations  derived 
from  the  latter  may  safely  be  carried  over  to  all  possible  experi- 
ences connected  with  the  former  ;  one  does  this  so  instinctively 
that  a  man  may  very  readily  suppose  that  he  is  still  busied 
about  the  apparently  non-extended  element  with  which  he 
started,  when  he  is  in  reality  dividing  and  sub-dividing  its  repre- 
sentative, which  is  evidently  extended.  But  the  question  is  not 
whether,  when  one  has  divided  a  line  until  the  parts  cannot  be 
seen  to  consist  of  parts,  one  may  substitute  for  these  parts  what 
evidently  does  consist  of  parts,  and  go  on  dividing  that.  The 
question  is,  whether  an  apparently  non-extended  element  of  a 
line  in  consciousness  is  divisible  or  not.  Any  argument  from 
the  possibility  of  dividing  its  substitutes  evidently  has  nothing 
to  do  with  this  point. 

It  is  plain  that  this  doctrine,  which  makes  any  particular  finite 
line  in  consciousness  to  consist  of  a  limited  number  of  simple 
parts,  is  not  open  to  the  objection  that  it  necessitates  the  absurd- 
ity of  exhausting  an  endless  series.  Moving  along  such  a  line, 
Achilles  could  overtake  the  tortoise,  for  the  successively  dimin- 
ishing distances  between  them  do  not  constitute  an  endless 
series.  The  descending  series  results  after  a  limited  number  of 
terms  in  the  simple,  and  the  series  is  broken,  for  the  simple  does 
not  consist  of  parts.  In  this  there  is  at  least  no  contradiction. 
It  remains  to  see  what  other  objections  may  lie  against  it. 

It  may  be  argued,  first,  as  it  often  is  argued,  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  conceive  of  any  part  of  a  line  as  not  itself  extended  and 
having  parts.  It  may  be  admitted  that  the  small  parts  arrived 
at  do  not  seem  to  have  part  out  of  part ;  that  these  sub-parts  are 
not  observed  in  them,  but  still  it  is  said  that  one  who  thinks 
about  them  cannot  but  think  of  them  as  really  having  such 


parts.  I  ask  one  who  puts  forward  this  objection  to  look  into 
his  own  mind  and  see  whether  he  does  not  mean  by  "  thinking 
about  them,"  bringing  them  in  imagination  nearer  to  the  eye,  or 
by  some  means  substituting  for  them  what  can  be  seen  to  have 
part  out  of.  part.  That  one  can  do  this  no  one  would  think  of 
denying,  but,  as  I  have  said,  this  does  not  prove  the  original 
parts  to  be  extended. 

It  may  be  objected  again  that  extension  can  never  be  built  up 
out  of  the  non-extended — that  if  one  element  of  a  given  kind 
has,  taken  alone,  no  extension  at  all,  two  or  more  such  elements 
together  cannot  have  any  extension  either.  I  answer  that  a 
straight  line  has  no  angularity  at  all,  and  yet  two  straight  lines 
may  obviously  make  an  angle  ;  that  one  man  is  not  in  the  least 
a  crowd,  but  that  one  hundred  men  may  be  ;  that  no  single  tree 
is  a  forest,  but  that  many  trees  together  do  make  a  forest ;  that 
a  uniform  expanse  of  color  is  in  no  sense  a  variegated  surface, 
but  that  several  such  together  do  make  a  variegated  surface.  It 
may  be  that  extension  is  simply  the  name  we  give  to  several 
simple  sense-elements  of  a  particular  kind  taken  together.  One 
cannot  say  off-hand  that  it  is  not. 

Should  one  object,  finally,  that,  if  a  given  line  in  conscious- 
ness be  composed  of  a  limited  number  of  indivisible  elements  of 
sensation,  consciousness  ought  to  distinguish  these  single 
elements  and  testify  as  to  their  number ;  I  answer  that  what  is 
in  consciousness  is  not  necessarily  in  a  clear  analytical  conscious- 
ness, nor  well  distinguished  from  other  elements.  For  example, 
I  am  at  present  conscious  of  a  stream  of  sensations  which  I 
connect  with  the  hand  that  holds  my  pen.  The  single  elements 
in  this  complex  I  cannot  distinguish  from  each  other,  nor  can  I 
give  their  number.  It  does  not  follow  that  I  am  to  assume  the 
number  to  be  infinite.  Much  less  should  I  be  impelled  to  make 
this  assumption,  if  it  necessitated  my  accepting  as  true  what  I 


152 

see  to  be  flatly  contradictory,  as  in  the  case  under  discussion. 
It  was  because  of  this  vagueness  and  lack  of  discrimination  in 
the  testimony  of  consciousness  that  I  said,  some  distance  back, 
that  consciousness  seems  to  testify  that  any  finite  line  in  it  is 
composed  of  simple  parts.  If  the  testimony  were  quite  clear, 
the  matter  would  be  settled  at  once.  As  it  is  not  quite  clear, 
the  matter  has  to  be  settled  on  a  deductive  basis.  The  most 
reasonable  solution  appears  to  be  the  Berkeleyan. 

So  much  for  the  line  immediately  perceived,  the  line  in  con- 
sciousness. What  shall  we  say  to  one  who  is  willing  to  admit 
that  this  line  is  not  infinitely  divisible,  but  is  composed  of  simple 
sense-elements  ;  and  yet  who  maintains  that  there  exists  an 
"  external"  line  corresponding  to  it,  which  is  not  immediately 
perceived,  and  is  infinitely  divisible  ?  We  may  begin  by  sug- 
gesting to  him  that  an  "external"  point  moving  over  this 
"external"  line  must  perform  the  wholly  impossible  feat  to 
which  Clifford  condemns  a  point  moving  over  a  line ;  and  we 
may  farther  suggest  that,  if  the  "external"  world  be  an  intelli- 
gible world  at  all,  a  contradiction  may  be  as  much  out  of  place 
in  it  as  anywhere  else.  And  if  the  existence  of  this  world  be 
problematic,  a  thing  not  self-evident,  it  seems  quite  reasonable 
to  demand  very  good  proof  indeed  of  the  existence  of  that 
which  contains  in  its  very  conception  such  excellent  reasons  for 
believing  in  its  non-existence.  This  proof,  the  student  of  the 
history  of  speculation  will  testify,  has  not  as  yet  been  forth- 
coming. 

SEC.  37.  With  this  I  close  my  analysis  of  samenesses,  and  of 
confusions  which  have  resulted  in  needless  embarrassments  and 
gratuitous  difficulties.  More  instances  of  the  latter  could  be 
given,  of  course.  The  reader  will  be  able  to  furnish,  I  presume, 
many  like  them.  Those  which  I  have  given  seem  to  me  quite 
sufficient  to  prove  the  need  of  much  greater  care  and  exactitude 


153 

than  one  commonly  finds  in  metaphysical  reasonings.  Loose 
reasoning  is  bad  reasoning,  and  leads  to  bad  results.  Its  one 
virtue  is  that  it  does  not  require  much  mental  application  on  the 
part  of  either  author  or  reader.  On  the  other  hand,  the  attempt 
to  be  cautious  and  exact,  to  distinguish  between  things  easily 
confounded,  and  to  keep  strictly  to  the  thing  in  dispute  through 
a  long  discussion,  these  things  are  wearisome  to  all  concerned. 
Although  I  am  quite  conscious  of  this  fact,  I  have  tried  to  do 
these  things  :  with  what  result,  my  fellow-analysts  must  judge. 
I  feel  reasonably  sure  that  I  have  succeeded  in  being  wearisome, 
and  for  this  I  make  due  apology. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 


THE   KINDS    OF    SAMENESS. 

PAGE. 

SEC.   i.   Object  of  the  Monograph,       .        .        .        ,  5 

"  2.  Sameness  in  Sense  First,  or  Strict  Identity,          .        6 

"      3.  Sameness  in  Sense  Second, 6 

"      4.  Sameness  in  Sense  Third, 6 

"      5.  Sameness  in  Sense  Fourth, n 

"  6.  Sameness  in  Sense  Fifth,        .        .         .         .        .12 

"  7.  Sameness  in  Sense  Sixth,       .....       14 

"  8.  Sameness  in  Sense  Seventh,                                             16 

"  9.  The  Samenesses  of  "External"  Things,         .        .       31 

"  10.  Ambiguity  of  the  Word  "  Self,"      ....       34 

"  ii.  The  Samenesses  of  the  Self,                                           35 

'•  12.  Samenesses  of  the  Self  as  Noumenon  or  Substance,     35 

"  13.  Samenesses  of  the  "Real"  Self  out  of  Consciousness,  37 

"  14.  Samenesses  of  the  Self  in  Consciousness,        .        .       38 

"  15.  Samenesses  of  the  Self  in  Consciousness  (continued),  42 

"  1 6.  Samenesses  of  the  Self  in  Consciousness  (continued),  43 

"  17.  The  Self  as  "Form,"  and  its  Samenesses,      .         .       43 

"  1 8.  Summary  of  Results  of  the  Foregoing  Analysis,  .       48 

"  19.  The  Element  Common  to  the  Kinds  of  Sameness,       54 

"  20.  Use  of  the  Word  Identity, ,    .         .         .        .        .64 


156 
PART  II. 


HISTORICAL   AND    CRITICAL. 

PAGE. 


SEC.  21.  The  Error  of  Heraclitus, 67 

"     22.  The  Climax  of  Cratylus, 68 

"     23.  The  Parmenidean  Argument  for  the  Eternity  of 

"Being," 

11     24.  Gorgias  and  Samenesses  Fifth  and  Sixth,     .         .  69 
"     25.  Plato  and  the  Eleatic  "One,"        .                          -7° 

"     26.  Aristotle's  Treatment  of  Samenesses,  ...  82 

"     27.  The  Confusions  of  Pyrrho,  and  Their  Results,     .  84 

"     28.  Sameness  and  the  Dispute  concerning  Universals,  88 

"     29.  Descartes'  Confusion  of  Samenesses,    ...  98 
""     30.  Spinoza's  Argument  to  Prove  every  Substance 

Infinite, 108 

"     31.  Locke's   Confusion   of   Sense   First   and   Sense 

Seventh, 1 1 1 

"     32.  Berkeley's  Error  concerning  Sense  Sixth,     .         .120 

"     33.  John  Stuart  Mill  on  the  Kinds  of  Sameness,        .  122 
"     34.  The  Spencerian  "  Unknowable,"  and  Samenesses 

Seventh  and  Second, 124 

"     35.  The  Confusions  at   the   Basis  of   Dr.   McCosh's 

"Realism," 134 

"     36.  Sameness  and  the  Infinite  Divisibility  of  Space,  143 

"     37.  Conclusion, 152 


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